OLIN BV 4501 .R96z 1916 'ft- \<^y Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924081814570 CORNE LL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3^1 924 081 814 570 g||r muiam gemt grrtttreg The Christian Life (L^^^-c^ ^fcLo«t.^;i|v^ WAUTER H. JENKINS, PRINTCW FHILADEL.FHIA m^ l^ttfutt ^ HIS is the first of what it is hoped will be a series of public addresses to be known as the WILLIAM PENN LECTURES. They are to be supported by the Young Friends' Movement of Philadel- phia Yearly Meeting, which was organized on Fifth month thirteenth, 191 6, at Race Street Meeting House in Philadelphia, for the purpose of closer fellowship; for the strengthening by such association and the in- terchange of experience, of loyalty to the ideals of the Society of Friends; and for preparation by such a common idealism for more effective work thru the Society of Friends for the growth of the Kingdom of God on the earth. The name of William Penn has been chos- en because he was a Great Adventurer, who Preiace in fellowship with his friends started in his youth on the holy experiment of endeavoring "to live out the laws of Christ in every thought, and word, and deed," that these might become the laws and habits of the State. Elbert Russell of Johns Hopkins Univer- sity was invited by the organizing Executive Committee to present the first address and on the evening of Fifth month thirteenth, 1916, delivered this address on "The Christian Life," in Race Street Meeting House. Philadelphia, Pa., 1916. ©Ijp €l|riattatt iCtff UM AN life is the highest form of life ; the Christian life is the highest form of human life. Paul expresses it, "For the earnest expectation of the creation wait- eth for the revealing of the sons of God," (Rom. 8:19). In dealing with the Christian life we are dealing with facts of human his- tory and experience. We shall treat it as such; not theoretically, nor from the point of view of theological explanation. The Christian life was partially realized before the coming of Jesus in the prophets and Old Testament saints, but was given fresh im- petus and greater definiteness by his life and teaching. The two most important aspects of any form of religious life are its energy and di- rection. Any real religion evokes new en- William Penn Lecture thusiasm and imparts new energies to its ad- herents. The first important consideration in regard to the Christian life is the sources and character of its spiritual energies. The second is the direction which this energy takes and the manner in which it expresses itself. The first brings us to the mystical and personal aspects of the Christian life; the second to its social and ethical content. Page Six The Christian Life The power of the Christian life springs from its mysticism. W^ift Mysticism, as it is used in Church iUusltf al History, does not mean some- AfitlFrt thing mysterious or incompre- hensible, but designates that type of religion which seeks for direct personal relations with God. Christian life is a form of mysti- cism. The possibility of a mystical rela- tion with God springs from the nature of God and of man. Lew Wallace in "Ben Hur" puts into the mouth of Balthasar, the Egyptian, this definition of religion: "In purity it has but these elements — God, the Soul, and their Mutual Recognition." (Ben Hur, p. 23). This mutual recognition is pos- sible because God is knowable and approach- able, and men have the capacity to know and come to God. The author of Hebrews states Page Seven William Penn Lecture this truth : "He that cometh to God must be- lieve that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after Him." (Heb. ii:6). The Christian life, as Jesus taught and ex- emplified it, is based on the fatherly interest of God in men and His desire to have them in filial fellowship with Him. In its larger sense it began with Jesus' own oneness with God and his efforts to teach and lead men into like fellowship. At the time of Christ the current idea among the Pharisees was that God was a distant and unapproachable King. He was believed to have his throne in the seventh heaven, and to be in communication with the world only by mezms of angels. There was an angel of the wind, an angel of the snow, angels of the stars, and of all nat- ural objects and processes. Each person was supposed to have a guardian angel at the Page Eight The Christian Life court of heaven who presented his needs and prayers to God and brought back to him God's answers and provision for his needs. God took a direct share in the management of the world only on occasion of special providence or miracle. He had revealed His and observe it to be accounted righteous and will in the law and men needed only to read finally admitted to the messianic kingdom. With such notions there would be little seeking for personal fellowship with God, and for the power that cpmes from personal relations with a great and dynamic Personali- ty- Jesus taught a different conception of God and sought to bring men into personal fellow- ship with Him. He insisted that it is God who makes His sun to rise on the evil and good and sends His rain on the just and the Page Nine William Penn Lecture unjust. He feeds the birds and clothes the lilies. He works even until now. To Jesus the world is the Father's House with many abiding places for his children. Paul sums up Jesus' teaching: "In Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts, 17:28). A modem apostle expresses and applies the same truth: "In Horeb's bush the Presence spoke To earlier faiths and simpler folk; Now every bush that sweeps our fence Flames with the awful immanence." Jesus ordered his life according to this new conception; he knew no sacred places or sea- sons but sought strength and guidance in every place and time of need. He practiced the immanence of God. He taught the Samari- tan woman that there is no special place of Page Ten The Christian Life worship, but because God is a universal spirit, all that is needed for communion with him is a right spirit on the part of the worshipper. It is from the Ever Present Spirit of God that the energy of the Christian life flows into the souls of men : ''Speak to Him thou for He hears — and Spirit with Spirit can meet — Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." Equally strong or stronger than Jesus' as- sertion of God's immanence is his assertion of God's love and His eagerness to enter into fellowship with men and supply the needed power for the highest living. He marks the sparrow's fall, nimibers our hairs, cmd knows our needs before we ask Him. He is more willing than an earthly parent to give good Page Eleven William Penn Lecture gifts to His children. He grieves over the sins and sufferings of men ; seeks like a good shepherd to reclaim the lost, and rejoices over their repentance- Jesus never states this immanent Fatherly care of God as an ab- stract doctrine, but he knew it as an experi- ence and sought to bring other men to know it. Whittier voices this conviction: "All souls are thine; the wings of morning bear None from that Presence that is everywhere ; Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there." "I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond his love and care." Page Twelve The Christian Life This loving accessibility, however, on the part of God would not result in fellowship between man and God, if man had no capacity to perceive the Divine Presence, no ability to understand His voice or to comprehend His will, no desire for His fellowship. Where low estimates of man exist, where his spiritual incapacity, inability and depravity are fully accepted, mystical experiences seem an im- possibility; and religion tends to become a second hand matter, mediated by priest or sacrament, or degenerates into mere formal belief or ritual. Such ideas of the innate moral distance between man and God were emphasized by the Pharisees in Jesus' time. Communion with God was thought possible only thru angel or priest. Even under nominal Christian teaching, in the decadence of the Roman empire, the world began to feel Page Thirteen William Penn Lecture itself under the wrath of God. The church re- garded art and learning and pleasures as sin- ful at first because they were of pagan origin, and then because they were human. The bar- barians who overran the empire yielded to the church, and found their ideas, customs, and impulses so at variance with the church's teaching and demands, that they acquiesced readily Augustine's doctrine of the depravity of human nature. Naturally they accepted also his doctrine of the impossibility of in- tercourse with God without the mediation of the church. Jesus founded his work on the contrary idea. While recognizing the sinning and sin- fulness of men, he emphasized the potentiali- ty of divine sonship in all, and called them to direct intercourse and fellowship with God. He did not assert human capacity for Page Fourteen The Christian Life the life with God as an abstract doctrine; he assumed and appealed to it. He addressed his teachings to the multitude, to outcasts as well as to Rabbis and saints, expecting them to understand. He invited men to come to God with "Our Father" on their lips. He cried, "Why do ye yourselves not judge what is right?" "He that hath ears to hear let him hear." His disciples were ordinary men with passions like the rest. James and John wished to destroy the villagers who would not receive him. Thomas doubted. Peter was a coward and denied him. Judas betrayed and sold him. Yet Jesus called on these men to love one another as He loved them; to for* give one another as they desired God's for- giveness; to become one, even as he and the Father were one; to be perfect even as God is perfect. Page Fifteea / William Penn Lecture Jesus had conscious faith in the capacity of men for sonship with God. He committed his movement to them and left it, without seeking to safeguard it with any other buttress. "I came to cast fire on the earth and what more do I want, if it be once kindled?" he said. (Cf. Luke 12 :49). He knew human nature was good fuel for the fires of love and the passion for righteousness. He compared his kingdom to a seed dropped in soil, which has the ca- pacity to make the seed grow to fruition. "The earth beareth fruit of itself." He be- lieved that human nature was fruitful soil for the truth and love of God. Jesus' faith in the potential divine sonship of man halted at no sort nor pondition of men. It is comparatively easy for us to believe in the spiritual capacities of our own people, set, class, or race; hard for us to believe that Page Sixteen The Christian Life \ any good can come from Nazareth or Africa or China or the slums. We are tempted to believe that the publicail, the criminal and harlot are hopeless. Calvinistic England felt that the drunkard, thief, and murderer were certainly reprobate. When George Fox preached the Gospel to them, he only revived Jesus' faith in the divine possibilities of all men. Slaveholding America believed that negroes lacked the higher human possibili- ties. Jesus had a larger faith, which Paul formulates: "The new man that is being re- newed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him; where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircum- cision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, free- man; but Christ is all and in all." (Col. 3:10- II). These are the two great facts out of which Page Seventeen William Penn Lecture the Christian life springs: God ever present, ever seeking to reveal Himself to men, and to bring them into a filial relation with Him- self; and man, with capacity to know God, to share His purposes, and come into spirit- ual unity with Him; made for God and "rest- less till he rests in Him." It follows from these two great truths that only ignorance or sin prevent that "Mutual Recognition" which is the third element in Wallace's definition of religion. We have seen that a vital conviction of God's unap- proachable transcendence or of man's depra- vity make direct relations with God seem im- possible. Religion can exist then only by means of mediaries. Communication can only be established thru angels or priests. God's purposes and will can only be made known thru exceptional persons or means. Page Eighteen The Christian Life and worship can only be performed in con- secrated places by means of priest or sacra- ment or rite. These limitations vanish with the realization of God's nearness and the po- tential priesthood of all men. Neither in Gerizim nor Jerusalem are we specially near God. Sinai's summit is not nearer heaven than the summit of the Matterhorn. In these days when the telescope has banished the old spiritual geography, it is comforting to know that we are as near God here tonight as we would be if we took the wings of light and traveled to the most distant star of the firma- ment. The fancied need of priests and sacraments vanishes with the realization of God's near- ness. We need not deny that men have been helped at times by the cumbersome machinery of ecclesiasticism to the knowledge of God. Page Nineteen William Penn Lecture Barclay in his "Apology" has an interesting and frank acknowledgment of such help be- fore he learned the simpler way. When Columbus discovered America he went first over the known route to the Azore Islands before venturing into the unknown way. For a while afterward men thought the only route to America was by way of the Azores. But John and Sebastian Cabot, avoiding the long southward journey, steered boldly westward from England and they too reached America. Naturally the more direct route quickly took the place of the round about way. God is in the so-called holy places and can be found as readily on "holy days" as on others; but when Jesus showed men that none of these is essential, that the way to God is always ever3^where open to the earnest spirit, the paraphernalia of ecclesiasticism and priest- craft naturally fell into disuse. Page Twenty The Christian Life Stephen Grellet relates that when he visit- ed Russia he got an appointment to meet with the Patriarch of Moscow, head of the Russo-Greek Church. He went in his plain Quaker suit and broad-brim hat and was sur- prised to find the Patriarch in his robes and tiara. But when they conversed about spirit- ual things, robe and Quaker coat alike lost significance. They found that underneath all, they both had been baptized into the things of the kingdom of God. We come now to the personal aspects of the Christian life. We (Silt are in danger of feeling that ^(t0Ott£ll God's mere immanence and our ^j^nfttB human capacity of themselves bring us into fellowship with God ; but this is not the case. Mere proximity does not bring fellowship. The most lonesome day I can Page Twenty-one William Penn Lecture remember was a Fourth of July at Lake Chautauqua. There were ten thousand people on the grounds, but they were all strangers. I was literally jammed in the crowd and pressed against other people, but had fellow- ship with none. At a recent exposition a group of statuary was on exhibition. It consisted of three figures joined back to back, carved from the same block of stone, and sitting upon the same dais; but each looked with a faraway gaze toward a different quarter of the world. The sculptor named the group "Solitude of Soul." Fellowship is a personal relation, not merely a physical or spatial relation. It can only be entered into by a personal choice, by advances of spirit. We may be surrounded by air and yet suffocate. We may be immersed in water and suffer thirst. Though we "live and move and have our being in God," we Page Twenty-Two The Christian Life may be strangers to Him. Therefore Tenny- son must needs exhort : "Speak to Him thou," since He is near and spirit with spirit can meet. The Christian life which springs from the mutual recognition of God and the Soul must wait then, not for nearness and willing- ness in God, but for recognition and open- ness of soul on the part of man. Similarly, our capacity for the Christian life, for fellowship with God, does not in- sure that the potentiality will be realized. All normal men and women are bom with a ca- pacity for married love, but not all experience it. We have a capacity for knowledge, but the attainment comes only with our choice and effort. The Creator has not forced good- ness upon us. We are bom with a capacity for divine sonship, but we do not inherit vir- tue. We are not bom good any more than Page Twenty-Three William Penn Lecture we are bom learned or loving. The Christian life, as a conscious relation with God, must have a beginning different from physical birth. To use Jesus' much abused phrase, men must be bom a second time to enter the kingdom of God. New Testament writers use various terms to describe this personal change of attitude through which men come into a new life. The Baptist called it repent- ance, "a change of mind or purpose;" Jesus says "a new birth;" Paul, "a new creation." If we try to describe the Christian life, es- pecially in terms of the difference between one who possesses it and one who does not, we are face to face with the elusive mystery of all life. Just what is the tangible differ- ence between an ^gg that will hatch and one that will not? One is alive and the other is not ; but to all ready tests shell, lining, white. Page Twenty-Four The Christian Life 3rblk, and nucleus are the same in both. The difference between a person who is spiritual- ly alive and one who is not, does not lie in externals. It can only be discerned in its spiritual qualities, and known by its fruits. If we may risk an analogy, the change that takes place in one who "enters into life" is like the change that takes place in Congress when its politicical complexion changes. The capitol, rooms, furniture, rules, and most of the members remain the same, but the politi- cal character of its legislation becomes radi- cally different. When one enters on the Christian life, the elements of his being, body, memories, faculties, social relations, remain unchanged. But the moral will is now identi- fied with the highest and best within his own nature ; with the will of God as far as known to him and in him. His moral character is Page Twenty-Five William Penn Lecture BOW changed so that what he once loved he now hates, and his acts become conscientious, unselfish. Christlike. In such complex and intangible matters as the life of the spirit it is impossible to draw hard and fast lines. We are all a strange med- ley of conflicting thoughts, impulses and pur- poses. All of us know from experience the conflict of "flesh" and "spirit" within us which Paul describes. (Rom. 7). Even in the Christian, these contradictions remain in some degree. It is impossible to draw an exclusive line between saint and sinner. Each will have traits that stick over on the other side of the line. There are some saints that dogs and children avoid. They make mighty uncom- fortable neighbors. And there are some very lovable sinners. Whittier puts it: "Never was saint so good and great Page Twenty-Six The Christian Life As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate, For the plea of the Devil's advocate." Yet there is solid ground in their dominant purposes, in the fixed direction of the moral will for the distinction between saint and sinner, Christian and non-Christian. There are some who are willing to do right most of the time, but whose life rule it is to do wrong when it suits their selfish whim, or purpose, or seems to promote their interest to do so; these are the sinners. But those who have the Christian life are they whose set purpose it is always, at whatever seeming personal cost or sacrifice, to follow the Divine Light, to fulfill God's will, and to let the Spirit of Jesus transform their character and direct their ways. We must recognize the infinite individual variety in the beginnings and expression of Page Twenty-Seven William Penn Lecture the Christian life. There is as great variety in souls as in faces. Neither at the physical birth nor at the spiritual are we fashioned in exactly the same mould. Each comes into unity with God in his own way according to temperament and training. Our immanent Maker has left for himself a myriad gates into our being, and He floods in whenever and wherever the soul unbars the gates, and in measure as they are opened. In this indivi- dual and personal way, to know, and trust, and love, and co-operate with the Infinite Father — this is Life Eternal. The Christian life is no more burial solitary in its beginning and Atbfii progress than is the physical to lift li^e. The idea of the old French (tU;ri0ttan philosophers that human soci- Cife ety is the result of a free con- tract between individuals who Page Twenty-Eight The Christian Life surrender part of their rights for collective ad- vantages is an utterly inadequate description of social origins. We are not first of all in- dividuals and then members of society. Each of us begins life as a member of a family and, thru the family, of larger social groups. We have our chance at life, learning, and property because of what family, school, and state do for us. We become individuals be- cause of their aid. The same is true of the religious life. We must not forget that our ideal of personal and immediate relations with God is realized as the result of a social pro- cess. We are accustomed to think of George Fox's initial religious experiences as that of a normal man. It showed the possibility of di- rect relations with God unmediated by book, priest or church. But it would be an inade- quate understanding of his experience to ig- Page Twenty-Nine William Penn Lecture nore the social factors that led up to it and made it possible. His mother was of the "seed of the martyrs.^ Among his early influences had been the story of her ancestors who had paid with their lives for the right of private judgment in things religious. His father was "Righteous" Chris- ter, — a Puritan. He was brought up under the doctrinal preaching of Priest Stephens; and he knew his Bible almost by heart. These things turned his attention to spiritual things, helped to create a hunger for God, that none else could appease, and opened his ears to hear the divine Voice. Without them it is quite unlikely that he would have had his epoch-making experience in the fields where he heard the assurance within that Christ could speak to his condition. We see from this, in the first place, that Page Thirty The Christian Life there is a social side to the knowledge of God. The ideal state would be that described by Jeremiah (31 :34), in which men no more need to say every man to his neighbor, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know Him. But that state is not yet realized. All men have the capacity to recognize spiritual truth. The Inner Light lights every man; but the actual spiritual perceptions of men differ in remark- able degrees, because their capacities are very unequally developed. As a boy, I went squirrel hunting with an old hunter. I had as good eyes as he did; I had as much innate capacity for seeing, but he would see a squirrel where I saw only limbs, moss or leaves. But after he would point it out to me, I could distinguish the squirrel myself, and gradually, by his aid, I got able to see them by myself. On the one Page Thirty-One William Penn Lecture hand, I did not give up the attempt to see the squirrels by myself and simply depend on his eyesight. On the other, I should have failed to to see it. And even after I became fairly ex- pert, both of us together were more apt to find game thzin either of us alone would have been. So it is with the knowledge of spiritual things. We must not press the precious truth of the universal Light beyond the facts. In a telegraph system the resistance of the line so weakens the line current that it will not work the "sounders" in the operator's office. It is necessary to put in a very sensitive "relay" instrument to respond to the line cur- rent and use a local battery to work the "sounder." For the great majority of men, the voice of the Spirit is so muffled and the Light so dimmed by grossness, greed, inexperi- Page Thirty 'Two The Christian Life ence and sin, that they miss or misread the message. But there are specially sensi- tive souls who give earnest heed to the voice of the Spirit; who purify their hearts, and so attune them to the Divine that they surpass their fellows in the knowledge pf God ; and become God's prophets and spokes- men. Thru their voices, the Inner Voice in their fellows is reinforced and clarified. For this reason the outward revelation is practically needed. Without the accumulated experience and spiritual wisdom of the great body of believers; without the Scriptures of the prophets, apostles, and the Great Teacher, few of us would get beyond the A. B. C. of the knowledge of God. In this lies the su- preme need of the outward revelation in Jesus Christ. The same passage in John (i :g, 10, 14) that tells us of the "Light that Page Thirty-Three William Penn Lecture lights every man that comes into the world," also tells us how the Light shone in uncom- prehending darkness, so that it became neces- sary to have an outward corroborating rein- forcing word in flesh, expressing the Divine grace and truth. In our search for guidance as to our everyday practical duty, our fullest and clearest knowledge is not attained alone. Robert Barclay was not sure that he ought to act on an impression until he had laid it before the elders of his meeting. When we talk over and pray over such matters to- gether we get surer light. Barclay puts it beautifully: "As many candles lighted, and put in one place, do greatly augment the light, and make it more to shine forth, so when many are gathered together into the same life, there is more of the glory of God, and his power appears, to the refreshment of each Page Thirty-Four The Christian Life individual; for that he partakes not only of the light and life raised in himself, but in all the rest." (Barclay's Apology, XI., 17.) These outward manifestations do not super- sede the direct and inward knowledge of\ God and His truth; they are simply aids to it. In these facts lies the need of carrying Christian truth to the non-Christian peoples of the world. Since the Inner Light of Christ is given to all races alike, we might conclude that any missionary work from one people to another is unnecessary. Conceiv- ably the world might rise by a uniform move- ment to the knowledge of God. But as a matter of history, such is not the way of hirnian progress. All races have a capacity for truth, beauty and justice, but to the Greeks was given in an especial degree the Page Thirty-Five William Penn Lecture knowledge of art and philosophy; and to the Romans the knowledge of legal right and civil justice. The rest of the world has come much more rapidly and accurately to a know- ledge of beauty, philosophical truth and civil justice because of their influence. Likewise '^Salvation is of the Jews;'* the circulation of the Bible and the spread of the gospel of Jesus has helped and will help the non- Christian world to an earlier and surer know- ledge of God. The need of social aid to religious life goes deeper than mere knowledge of spiritual truth. Barclay says that he was convinced of the truth of mystical Christianity because in the silent assemblies of the Friends, he felt the evil put down and the good raised up within him. Social influences powerfully affect our religious impulses, decisions and Page Tbirty-Six The Christian Life purposes. There is a phase of the priesthood of believers which Protestantism has not suf- ficiently recognized. It is the privilege of every person not only to come to God direct- ly himself, but to assist others to come into conscious fellowsip with Him — not officially as appointed and indispensible mediators but as personal agents. The great spiritual forces — truth, love, faith, the passion for righteous- ness, the hunger for fellowship with God — are able to make their greatest impression upon our double nature when the inward di- rect impression is reinforced by the influence of a human personality. The electric current affects us little unless it be rendered lumin- ous in the arc light or converted into power in a motor. We breathe volumes of nitrogen in the air daily, but it can only nourish us, when other more capable organisms first as- Page Thirty-Seven William Penn Lecture similate it and convert it into herbage or flesh fit for our food. So we live and move and have our being in God, but His power touches our spirits more powerfully when translated into the ideas, conduct and character of per- sons who are bound up with us in the bun- dle of life. We need not try to explain this mystery; we need only recognize the fact and profit by it. I remember clearly my childish fear of the dark. I could not bring myself on winter nights to go thru the dark kitchen out to the pump on the porch to get a drink of wa- ter. But if my little sister, who could scarce- ly toddle by my side, would go with me and hold my hand, I was able to go. Her pres- ence gave enough strength to my will to en- able me to do the otherwise impossible. It is said that Wellington did not begin the bat- Page Thirty-Eight The Christian Life tie of Waterloo until he had Blucher's assur- ance that he would come to reinforce him. Blucher's troops had been engaged in hard fighting the day before and had suffered re- verses. On the morning of the battle, they were twelve miles from Waterloo and the heavy rains made the country a morass in which the soldiers sank boot-top deep. The hours wore by, the men's spirits sank, and it became evident that they could not reach the battlefield in time to save the day. Then Blu- cher began to exhort his men; he told them the necessity of arriving in time, pictured the glories of the fatherland freed; infused into them his own indomitable Spirit. Their strength came again, and they reached Water- loo and at the critical hour of the battle. Jesus chose the method of personal con- tact to extend and deepen the influence of the Page Thirty-Nine William Penn Lecture Divine Spirit. He kindled twelve men with his ideas and spirit, and sent them out to set other souls on fire with his truth and love. In our everyday experience how often some triumph over evil comes; some vista of new truth opens or genuine worship begins be- cause of another's life, or word, or prayer. This is the larger priesthood of believers. George Fox once said his mission was to lead men to Christ and leave them there. The neglect of this element of religious life lay at the root of the controversy which Per- rot, Wilkinson and Story had with George Fox over the organization and fixed order of the Society of Friends. They stopped with the theoretic possibility of individual revela- tion and fellowship. Fox recognized the prac- tical fact that perceptions are clearer, wor- ship truer, and impulses purer and steadier. Page Forty The Christian Life when saints walk and talk and worship to- gether in an organized society. We must notice two other phases of these social aids to the Christian life. One is an extension of this personal power. The au- thor of the Epistle to the Hebrews says of righteous Abel, that being dead he yet speaks (ii 14). There is a marvelous power by 'which the message and influence of a human life may be stored in a book and released again to the reader. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Catholic Jesuit Order, was a Spanish soldier of fortune who was wounded in the wars with the Moors. As he was convalesc- ing, one of the Sisters who waited on him gave him a book of "Lives of the Saints" to read. Through the medium of the book, the faith and devotion to the church of these medieval saints, long since dead, entered in- Page Forty-One William Penn Lecture to the spirit of Loyola and turned him into another man. He left the hospital to become the fanatical servant of the Church, the founder of the Jesuit Order, the greatest single religious influence in European religi- ous history of his time. The author of He- brews (12:1-2) represents us as athletes run- ning a race. He knows that every athlete runs better under the eyes of sympathizers; and reminds his readers that the benches of the stadium are filled with a "great cloud" of expert and sympathetic witnesses — the heroes and martyrs of the faith recorded in the Old Testament, gathered to cheer and en- courage them in the contest. Reading the Bible not merely gives us religious informa- tion; it brings us into a bracing spiritual air and gives us the stimulus of contact, thru the proxy of the printed page, with noble Page Forty-Two The Christian Life and inspiring pesonalities. If their influence is a little less direct and vital than those with whom we sit in the meeting for worship, the company is more select and the range of character greater. The other point has to do with the inten- sifying of this personal power thru the self-sacrifice of Jesus. A person's moral in- fluence is usually in proportion to his ultima- tum to the world when it would turn him from his purpose. His ideals gain power not only by their truth but by his sincerity. Other things being equal, convictions are contagious in proportion to men's willing- ness to suffer for them. More than anytl^ng else, voluntary suffering for the good of others makes personality dynamic and fruit- ful. It was the sight of Garrison's glorified face Page Forty-Thiee William Penn Lecture in the "broad cloth mob'* of Boston with a rope around his neck that made an abolition- ist of Wendell Phillips. Between the teachings of the Roman phil- osopher Seneca and those of Paul, there are enough resemblances to give rise to the fic- tion of the correspondence between them. But Seneca's lofty ideals were singularly bar- ren. He wrote beautiful essays on simplicity though he lived in luxury. He taught purity while living in notorious immorality. He exhorted to poverty but accumulated a vast fortune within a few years. He gave no evi- dence of sincerity in his teachings. He did not show his faith by a simple self-denying life like Tolstoi, nor was he willing to suffer rather than be false to his beliefs. Socrates, on the contrary sustained by his belief in im- mortality and his conviction that no real Page Forty-Four The Christian Life harm can be done to a good man in this life or the next, drank the poisoned cup rather than try to escape from prison or deny his teachings. His ideals "bit into" the life of his followers, and his influence still lives. Plato was his great pupil. Seneca's fine phrases have an insincere ring; he suffered only for disregarding his own precepts, and was or- dered to commit suicide for his peculations and conspiracies. Nero was his star pupil. If Jesus had merely taught in friendly Gal- ilee; and when opposition to him grew mur- derous, had avoided the Jewish leaders and found refuge among the Gentiles or Dis- pusion, he might have been regarded as a prophet or the founder of a new Jewish sect. But his love for his people was not limited by any consideration for himself. Moreover, he knew that unless a grain of wheat falls Page Forty-Five William Penn Lecture into the earth and dies, it remains fruitless. Only by being lifted up on the cross could his life find power to draw all men to him- self. His self-denying love thru the dy- namic leverage of the cross, touches, redeems and transforms men's lives, so that an ever- widening stream of righteousness and love has flowed from it thru the centuries. He be- came not only in his words and character the embodied and dynamic Truth of the Christian life, but his divine love, focussed in the might of the cross opens the Way of Life to those his spirit reaches. We have now to speak of gjj^^ the ethical direction of the Ethical Christian life and its social 3tr?rtt0n manifestations. At the begin- 0f t\\t ning I mentioned the fact that (ttifrifittatt we may draw a distinction be- '^ tween the power a person's re- ligion brings to him, and the Page Forty -Six The Christian Life direction in which this power is expend- ed. All great religions have been able to evoke new enthusiasms and to release moral energies in their devotees. Christian- ity is hardly distinguished by the religious energies it evokes in its adherents. Every great missionary religion has its martyrs. The Hindu mother who sacrificed her child to the Ganges and the Hindu guru or holy man who sits with arms extended until the joints grow together and the finger nails grow thru the palms have a power of renunciation and physical endurance equal to that of the Chris- tian martyrs. The utter abandon with which the fanatical soldiers of the Mohammedan Mahdi threw themselves on Kitchener's squares and machine guns in the Sudan can hardly be surpassed. Christianity is distinguished from these Page Forty-Seven William Penn Lecture other religions by the ethical direction of the powers which come into the soul thru the Divine Spirit. The first fruit of the Spirit of Christ is not philosophic insight, nor ec- static speech, nor physical mutilation, nor martyr courage; but altruistic conduct — ^not knowledge or tongues, nor giving the body to be burned, but love. (Cor. 13; Gal. 5:22). The conception of God's character, which a religion teaches, determines the ideal of conduct in its followers. Among the many courses of conduct that seem to promise lar- ger life, among the many opinions that seem plausible, among the many impulses that struggle for our acceptance and express the desire of some part of us, we must make choice in order to attain unified character and effective action. The effort to choose among these is powerfully aided by general stand- P&ge Forty-Eight William Penn Lecture ards of right and truth. The historical reve- lation of God's character and will in Christ form for us, in so far as we have accepted it, the criterion by which to distinguish true from false and right from wrong in the maze of voices and impulses within our complex and divided spiritual being. There have been many forms of mysticism in the world and many of them are not Christian at all. Many of them have notions of God's will quite at variance with Jesus' revelation of them, and consequently many of them take for movings of God's spirit impulses and feeling quite in- compatible with the character of "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Herr- mann, in his "Communion with God," calls attention to the distinctive character of the communion through Christ. A few years ago an ecstatic mystical sect arose in this coun- Page Forty-Nine William Penn Lecture try that called itself the "Holy Ghost and Us Society." (Cf. Acts 15:28). Because one of the members was disobedient to some re- quirements of the sect, the leader believed he was led of God's Spirit to starve the young man to death. Fortunately he was prevented from doing so ; but no one who knew and ac- cepted Jesus' conception of God could be- lieve that God willed such a thing or that the impulse to it was a leading of God's spirit. The pattern which the Christian seeks to weave into his character is found in the char- acter of God. The aim of the Christian life is to fulfill the will of God, The activities of the Christian life will be directed toward what we conceive God to be most interested in. There have been times when men thought God's will chiefly turned to the condition of men's souls in the next life. Religious de- Page Fifty The Christian Life votion then led them to renounce the world, to mortify the flesh and undergo spiritual discipline to prepare them for saintship in the next world. Other men have identified God's will primarily with the welfare of the Church. The chief product of their religion became the building of hierarchies and the practice of ritual. If men identify the will of God chiefly with idividual salvation, then the chief interest of religion is in one's self, in his own emotional experiences and beliefs, or in self-culture. But Jesus identifies the will of God with the love of men. The first commandment, he says, is to love God whole heartedly. This with slight modifications is the first commandment of all great religions. But Jesus immediately gives practical con- tent to the idea by identifiying love to God with love of men. A second is like unto it, Page Fifty-One William Penn Lecture he says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- self." (Matt. 22; 37-39). He puts brotherhood above ritual: "If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." (Matt. 5; 23, 24). He puts it above church membership: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John 13; 35). He centers his ideal in this world, rather than in the next. In his parable of the Last Judgment, he makes the blessed- ness of the future life conditioned on practi- cal love to men in this life. (Matt. 25; 34-46). Jesus gave a principle of social life as the essence of religious life, but he did not em- body it in an institution nor fix its expression Page Fifty -Two The Christian Life in any social organization. He left love to work itself out by the dynamic of religious devotion in whatever fonn best expresses it. Institutions so often outlive their original circumstances and become means of tyranny, cruelty and selfishness. Jesus left us to ad- just them to the expression of love, because all institutions whether religious, political or industrial, like the Sabbath, are made for man, not man for the institution. Our loyal- ty to state, church, school and business must be an expression of love to men; a loyalty that endures only because they are the most efficient instruments available for making that love effective. All other goods must bt secondary to human welfare, in a Christian life. Men are to be loved and protected not only above the institutions of men, but above cattle, machines or property. Page Fifty-Three William Penn Lecture The practice of this ethical —. principle brings us to the Siirtal social aspects of the Christian ?ExW^fi0tOtt ^^^^' ^^^^ ^^ ^ social force. 0f tht It cannot be practiced by an OUjinjaliatl isolated person. The solitary VjXx^ man; he was no a Christian man who» " — lived for himself and thought for himself, For himself and none beside; Just as if Jesus had never lived, As if he had never died." The supreme realization of the Christian life is in social relations. Jesus had no ascetic ideal; he approved marriage, blessed little children, recognized duties to the state, and told how wealth could be made to serve spirit Pzge Fifty-Four The Christian Life ual ends. His life was in conscious contrast with the Baptist's austere ways and lack of social ties. "The son of man came eating and drinking." He associated with all classes; dined with publican and Pharisee, sinner and saint alike. Much of his recorded teaching is table talk. Peter characterizes his life (Acts 10 ; 38) as that of one who went about doing good. His aim was to restore men to their normal selves emd relations; he healed the sick, taught the ignorant, reclaimed the sin- ful. There are two ways in which men attempt to practice Christian love. One is to make the existing social relations as helpful and agreeable as possible. This is practically all the apostolic church undertook. Paul believ- ed the time was short until the return of Christ and, therefore, advised each to remain Page Fifty-Five William Penn Lecture in the position in which he was called, (i Cor. 7; 17-24). He was also fearful of the consequences to the Christian movement, if it became known to the Roman authorities as a social revolution, (i Tim. 6; 1-2). It was a great gain to have a spirit of Christian kindness, self-denial and brotherly love de- termine the conduct of husbands and wives, masters and slaves, employer and employee, even in an essentially pagan form of society. Today it is great gain to have a Christian spirit animate men and women in their per- sonal relations in our complex and partially Christianized society. Faithful husbands, loving wives, self-sacrificing parents and lov- ing obedient children; unselfish physicians and teachers; benevolent employers and con- scientious workingmen; honest business men and truthful advertizers; philanthropis mil- Page Fifty-Six The Christian Life lionaires and statesmen who are really ser- vants of the people; society women, who in honor prefer one another; and ministers who are humble — all these are part of a Christian social life. But Christians early came to feel that no amount of personal conduct could make po- lygamy, slavery, and militarism square with Christian love. These forms of social life had to be abandoned by the post-apostolic church. This shows us the second way in which Christian love seeks expression: by changing the social order so that it may be a fitter vehicle for the Christian spirit. Any serious attempt to practice Jesus' second commandment finds that the very structure of society is often an effectual bar- rier to doing it. Mr. Ford happened to be in a position to raise the wages of his em- Page Fifty-Seven William Penn Lecture ployees to the level of a comfortable life for a family. But he threatened to demoralize the automobile business by doing so. A man in close competitive business often cannot give his employees a human living wage with- out destroying his business. Many of our worst wrongs are so firmly entrenched in our business and political system that they can only be righted by changing the system. William Penn hoped that in his new colony in America there might be room as there was not in England for a holy experiment in free conscience and free government. We need to ask ourselves today whether in our pres- ent social order there is room for the Chris- tian life fully to express its neighborly love. We may be sure that nothing in our exist- ing social order will pass unchallenged by the Christian spirit. Nothing can perman- Page Fifty-Eight The Christian Life ently remain that cannot square itself with the Golden Rule. I have heard many discus- sions o£ Women's Suffrage by Christian men, but I have never yet heard an attempt to de- cide the question by the Golden Rule. If women had the ballot and we men, with equal intelligence and educational opportunities in our own sphere, were disfranchised, how would we wish them to do unto us? I am not trying to answer the question. It is con- ceivable that if we men had been shut out from public experience and responsibility for centuries, and had been carefully taught that we were not competent to vote because our sphere lay elsewhere, we might not want the ballot. But no answer to the question can be final among a Christian people that does not spring from loving our women neighbors as we love ourselves. Is our prison system Page Fifty-Nine William Penn Lecture Christian? No, if its object is retribution; if it is only an impersonal way to taking ven- geance; and inflicting loss for loss, pain for pain, and life for life. Yes, if it is the best way we know to reform and help the criminal and to restore him to his place in the world. Is our wage system Christian? When it gives men for their work not what they and their families need to care for body, mind and spirit, but what their hunger and help- lessness compel them to take? If slavery was wrong, tho it gave the slave a living for his work, can a wage system be right that compels children and women to work for less than a living wage, and men to work for a single man's sustenamce tho he must sup- port a family on it? Is competitive business Christian? Can a Christian desire to succeed in business, if Page Sixty The Christian Life success means that his neighbor must fail? Jesus' ideal was brotherhood, and a family is maintained on the principle that the strong ought to help the weak, not on the principle that the strong may seize what they can and leave the weak destitute. Professor Rausch- enbusch says : "It is impossible to have a man sit by you as your brother and let him go hungry while you feed. Therefore as a usual thing we do not let him sit by us or we deny that he is our brother." (Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 123). Is private property in land Christian? Our land laws came mostly from aristocratic Eng- land, or from pagan Rome. Are they best suited to express the spirit of brotherly love, in a country where the landless can only get house or field, if he can find owner or land- lord who finds it in his own interest to rent Page Sixty 'One William Penn Lecture or sell house or field on his own arbitrary terms? Are our social standards Christian? Jesus said: "the greatest among you shall be ser- vant of all," but we pay our servants least while we accord fortunes to idlers. Manual laborers are lowest in the social scale as in the industrial. Work is still considered a disgrace to be avoided or a necessity to be endured by all classes. I need not multiply examples. My pur- pose is not to answer these questions. I am not sure myself how all of them should be answered. I am only sure the Christian life must include the Christianizing of our social order so that Christian brotherhood is possi- ble in it, for the Christian life must find ex- pression in love, service, and brotherhood. Page Sixty-Two