Ao A palethat tts | ew? een ee | ee ft bee a) ' 5 At lye gergeyewrent a! tele Sas ree srvete Sites tiate Lee a : L, a ee a c 4 . wate ehy ae" a anda se aendareonnneel = pty Ss Lotovess Tp eer iglaceere yeas nee ee eed nth i! 425191 ’ « aaitslte tite aa tat 49s De field i BR 125 .V47 1925 Versteeg, John M. Christianity at work ahah ae ae A Sepa uy ‘aa hit aes ap Itt Yt ye af Byy Ry le ae ee | (x) a: a ya Ne os ¥ gt hie ‘agp aatiit i ud ign "% aenate MUA 4 er she CHAPTER V SLAVERY In the section of the book with which this chapter begins, we are to note some instances of the improve- ments made in the past by Christianity. We are not attempting to furnish an exhaustive catalogue of them; simply some outstanding cases upon which Christian- ity may justly pride itself. THE TOLERATION OF SLAVERY Its prevalence.—Nobody knows when slavery be- gan. It existed before history came to exist. Some- where in that distant past, someone made it clear that it was a better idea to let war captives live and to use them than to kill and eat them. The idea ran like this: A prisoner taken in war had forfeited his life. He should therefore be grateful for any fate short of death to which he might be consigned. To make a slave of him seemed a merciful act. As time went on, many prisoners were taken in many wars. Slavery spread almost everywhere. Among the Far-Eastern races there was less of it; but there, in one form or another, was the caste system, with its ugly aspects of a similar fate. To ancient society slavery was axio- matic. Slaves might have the same color and intelli- gence as their masters. That did not matter. The right of man as man was unheard of. It never oc- curred to the masters that to own human beings was the acquisitive instinct gone mad. The products of slavery.—It is difficult for us, at this distance, to imagine the misery slavery caused. It 47 48 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK meant the endless degradation of the slaves. Among the Romans, up to the time of Hadrian, the master held undisputedly the power of life and death. There was nothing to protect the slave from the greed, hate, or lust of the owner. Slaves were used in gladiatorial combats; they ‘were set on each other to fight for their lives; the abomination of leg-breaking was inflicted upon them; Crassus might with impunity crucify six thousand; large numbers might be put to death at one time to gratify the whim of some ruler who decided in this fashion, to make a display of his grief or to evi- dence his power, and there were none to stay him. Always some were exceptionally humane with their slaves. We know with what magnanimity Marcus Aurelius treated his slaves. The Hebrews protected them by laws and made provisions whereby they were ultimately freed. The Greeks too learned to practice moderation. Yet, taken the world over, cruelty ob- tained. Under the best of laws, the slaves remained in reality at the mercy of their masters. There was al- ways the ruthless trampling upon human dignity. “I have been good,” boasted the slave, according to the Latin poet. “Then,” comes the retort, “you have your reward; you will not feed the crows on the cross.” Slavery, moreover, meant the degradation of free labor. The prevalence and cheapness of slave labor put free labor in a sorry plight. At a time when man- ual labor was a thing fit only for slaves, work in the sweat of one’s brow came into the ill-repute from which it has not wholly recovered to this day. Slavery paralyzed industry. Finally it involved the degrada- tion of the masters. Slave-owning brutalized them; it robbed them of the discipline of regular toil; it de- humanized them; it made for that master-class atti- tude which is still one of the last great bulwarks SLAVERY 49 against democracy. Neither conscience nor consid- erateness are in congenial climate when a man is able to say what a man once reported to Jesus: “ ‘Come,’ and they come; ‘Go,’ and they go.” _ Early protests.—About the fourth century B. Cc. were heard the first ominous rumblings against the institution of slavery. Plato saw no good in it. The Stoics protested its rigors, but made no attempt to secure its abolition. ‘Live with your slave kindly,” said Seneca, who practiced what he preached; “cour- teously admit him to conversation, to counsel, and to your board. Let some dine with you because they are worthy, others that they may be so.” But although doubtless some heeded, such counsel for the most part fell upon closed ears. They had Aristotle for author- ity that its abolition was inconceivable. Here and there, outside the Greek world, people questioned the wisdom of slavery. The Essenes, a quaint monastic sect existing among the Jews at the time of Jesus, openly denounced it. But theirs was a feeble voice; few gave heed to it. It required a might- ier voice before the keepers of the house of slavery would begin to tremble. THE AMELIORATION OF SLAVERY Christ’s attitude.—Yet no one is able to quote a sin- gle word which Jesus uttered against slavery as such. So far as we know, there was no slavery in Judza at the time Jesus lived. The Exile had, in all likelihood, put an end to it. For reasons of his own Jesus con- fined his mission to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He discussed few questions that lay outside their realm.. Hence he made no direct reference to slavery, nor to many other questions with which the minds of men have been distressed. 50 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK What, then, was Jesus’ contribution? His faith in the significance of the individual. His argument in favor of the soul proved to be the conclusive argument against slavery. To him a human being was of infinite value. He believed that it would profit one nothing if one gained the whole world but lost one’s soul. He came to enrich life, and he made war upon those who impoverished it. He could not endure oppression. He denounced with withering speech those who exploited their fellows. He told his followers that they were not to lord it over men; service was to be their dis- tinguishing characteristic. He was furthest from the notion» that only people of his own race were good enough for God. “Many shall come from the east and the west and sit down in the kingdom of God.” His counsel that men should do to others as they would have done to them; his stress on forgiveness and love, on sacrifice and service; his devotion to the poor and his unfailing sympathy for those who had heavy bur- dens, “grievous to be borne,” convinced his followers that ‘God is no respecter of persons.” The attitude of the early church.—They got the feeling that “In Christ there is no East or West, In him no South or North; But one great fellowship of Love Throughout the whole wide earth.” It took some of them a little time to arrive at this view, but it was not long before every Christian be- lieved that any man who had the spirit of Jesus was every bit a man, whatever his race or the manner of his circumstance. ‘‘In Christ,” said Paul, “there is * John Oxenham, “In Christ There Is No East or West. Re- printed by permission of the Century Company. SLAVERY St neither bond nor free.’”’ Then why did not he or the members of the early church, many of whom were slaves themselves, exert their energy to abolish slav- ery? The answer is that this probably never occurred to them! They accepted existing institutions, as most folks have done, without seriously questioning their right to exist. Paul looked upon slavery as a part of the social order, and the early church followed him in this. It put the emphasis upon the inner life. This accorded better with their expectancy of the early return of the Lord and with their other-worldliness. Masters and slaves, when Christian, were brothers in the Lord. It took a long time before the church began to condemn slavery as an institution. It was probably better so. There is no telling what might have hap- pened had the church set out at once to abolish slavery. Historians incline to the belief that, had the church opposed the existing order in such fashion as this, it would have been utterly destroyed; not a trace of Christianity would have been left in the earth. More- over, for the first few centuries of its life the Chris- tian Church was in constant danger of persecution. It had to fight for its life. It was in no position to remedy any such huge social evil as slavery. But if the early church did not condemn, it certainly improved. Once it gained control in the Roman Empire, an entirely dif- ferent attitude was brought about. Gradually, under benign legislation, absolute servitude became a thing of the past. Give the teachings of Jesus time enough, and they will arrive in the minds of men. His oppo- sition to oppression and exploitation was bound to have fruition in the conviction that the one way to improve slavery is to get rid of it. Hence we find Justinian, in the sixth century, seeking for means by which he might effect its extinction. 52 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK The recurrence of slavery.—But slavery was not to be abolished at one stroke. It had too firm a hold. Nor could slaves have been freed until there was a dif- ferent form of economic organization. That was long in coming, but finally it came. The Christian at- tempt to better the slave’s condition was furthered by the events of history. When the completion of con- quests reduced the supply of slaves, their existence be- came of greater value. Now came that higher level, about which we think so little, when men were no longer born into slavery, but were to the manor born. Slaves became serfs. They were attached to estates, and the numerous rights given them vastly improved their condition. All over Europe serfdom prevailed in the Middle Ages. And yet slavery continued. The crusades gave it new impulse, with Christians enslaving Mohamme- dans and Mohammedans enslaving Christians. Yet, be it said to their credit, among the Moslems, slavery was comparatively mild. Henry the Navigator took slaves “in order that they might become Christians.” There is no record that Mohammedans also availed themselves of slavery as a method of evangelism. From the tenth to the fourteenth centuries Rome was again the center of a considerable slave trade. Under the Saxons it flourished in England, with Bristol as the chief market. But although for years some of its most prominent citizens carried on the trade, slavery never really became popular in England. ‘One may be a villein in England, but not a slave,’ Chief Justice Holt had ruled in 1702. John Wesley called the slave traffic the “execrable sum of all villainies.”’ Mexico, Brazil, and Spanish South America had fewer scruples. Slaveholding developed extensively in all three. The work of the Jesuits in protecting the natives of Para- SLAVERY 53 guay from slavery is one of the noblest chapters in their history. Traffic in Negroes had been going on for several thousands of years. The discovery of America gave slavery new impetus. The Spaniard found that the Indian could not do his work for him. Consequently, he began importing Negroes. Las Casas, a Roman Catholic priest, gave this his encouragement, thinking thereby to prevent the extinction of the natives. He lived to lament his mistake. In England Negroes had been sold as early as 1553. Now Englishmen engaged in the trade to keep Americans supplied. The Dutch had for some time been at it. The same year (1620) that the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, a Dutch sloop landed the first twenty Negroes as slaves at Jamestown, Virginia. The traffic spread until by the time of the Civil War it had assumed: gigantic propor- tions. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY The beginnings of the end.—The story of how, in one land after another, slavery came to cease need not be detailed here. All that was best in the conscience of Christendom had been restive about slavery. To Denmark, a Protestant country, goes the honor of having been the first in Europe to abolish the trade. In France “the enthusiasm of humanity” associated with the revolutionary movement, rather than any dis- tinctly Christian-conviction upon the subject, brought about its abolition. But what is “the enthusiasm of humanity” but a Christian conviction? And from whom did France get it except from the Christ, who, for the moment, it had disowned ? But the death-knell of slavery was not sounded until the English-speaking world rid itself of the institution. 54 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK The prohibition of the slave-frade and the emancipa- tion of the slave in Great Britain and in the United States settled the matter for good. It was not a united church that, in these countries, fought the good fight. In large sections of it proof-texts buttressed by theo- logical opinions were quoted to demonstrate that slav- ery was the will of God. But the churches that were looking at the problem in the light of the life of Christ would have none of it. The controversy split the great denominations; their reunion is only being effected in our day. Among them all, the Quakers presented a united front. They gave the subject no rest. They never let up on it. One cannot hope to call the roll of all who had a large part in doing away with slavery. Such names as Clarkson and Woolman, Beecher, Phillips, Sumner, John Brown, Lady Middleton and Harriet Beecher Stowe, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame, readily suggest themselves. They by no means exhaust the list. What we need to note about the glorious company is that “it is unquestionable that the principal motive power which originated and sustained their efforts was Christian principle and feeling.” A trio of “Greathearts.”—To appreciate the truth of this, one needs but recall the motives of the three whose names stand first in the history of this move- ment. William Wilberforce, with an independent fortune, gave up a life of ease for one of relentless activity against human slavery, when, on a journey with a former teacher, he was converted to Christianity. Thereafter, in the name of Christ, he sought to make men free. “God Almighty,” he said, “has set before us the two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” And the Eng- SLAVERY 55 land in which he had ‘been so hated and so revered, responded to his appeal by putting an end to slavery just a month after he died. William Lloyd Garrison, a poor boy, working his own way up, “resolved to go forward, trusting in God for success.” He appealed to both churches and peo- ple to “bring the power of Christianity to bear against the slave-system.” Who that has clean blood in his veins does not love those words of his?-—*“I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard!” When he uttered these words he was so poor that he had to sleep on the floor of his dingy printshop. What did he seem like that day the mob dragged him by a rope through the streets of Boston, his clothes in tat- ters and his body bruised? Well, we know him now for the Christian he was; one supremely concerned for justice, willing to pay any cost that it might prevail. One need not write at length to convince those fa- miliar with United States history what it was that moved the soul of Lincoln. He had always had that sense of the dignity of life that characterized Christ. When the great moment came he reported that “God had decided the question in favor of the slaves.’”’ Lin- coln had fought it out on his knees. “I made the prom- ise to myself and—to my Maker,” and the emancipa- tion declaration was issued. ‘The Emancipator” had the spirit of Christ. All three of these men based their efforts on what they had learned from Christianity about the equality of all men before God. The persistence of slavery.—We are not all through with slavery yet. Only recently the British government dispatched a division of destroyers to co- operate with the French and Italian navies in curbing the slave-trading dhows that ply their nefarious busi- 56 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK ness between Africa and Arabia. Slavery still exists in Abyssinia and ‘continues, more or less clandestinely, in parts of the Moslem world. Other and horrible forms of slavery exist. Our blood, like Frederick W. Robertson’s, “runs to liquid fire’ at thought of peon- age and of white slavery. Christians dare not rest until these are banished too. But the Christian prin- ciple of the worth of human life is established in the earth. Never again will the traffic in human beings recur on any wholesale scale. For Discussion Lo . Why did protests against slavery begin among the Greeks rather than among the Romans? Did the idea of democracy in the one, and the practice of autocracy in the other, have much to do with it? 2. The story goes that John Newton wrote his famous hymn “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!” while aboard a slaver. How would you account for his type of piety? 3. Did the Roman Catholic Church take an active part in the abolition of slavery? (Some one might bring in a report on this.) 4. What is peonage? Has there been any lately in the United States ? 5. Does the Covenant of the League of Nations contain any reference to slavery? Can an international body like this entirely prohibit it? 6. Would slavery recur if Mohammedanism rather than Christianity came off victorious in the end? SUGGESTED READINGS Cairnes, J. E., Slave Power. Charnwood, Lord, Abraham Lincoln. Encyclopedia Britannica, Article, “Slavery.” CHAPTER): VI CRUELTY THE story of cruelty does not make pleasant read- ing. Yet one who seeks to know the part Christianity has played must go through with it. His reward will be the discovery that many forms of cruelty have “melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.” CRIME AND CRIMINALS A quaint idea of crime.—Crimes have varied with times and places, as have punishments. But crime has long been understood to consist of those acts or omis- sions “in respect of which punishment may be inflicted on the person who ts in default whether by acting or omitting to act.” Thus viewed, crime usually means some injury done an individual by which the general well-being is attacked. But for the greater part of the Christian era not only wrong conduct but wrong belief was accounted a crime. One who had, or ven- tured to voice, opinions contrary to those of the church, was in for punishment and for a lot of it. Men thought that a heretic was even worse than a criminal. You could call him a criminal only if you italicized the word and underscored it beside. The conflict with crime.— Until recently the theory was virtually universal that extreme penalties are the best deterrents of crime. This theory was put into practice with appalling zest. Upon but slight provoca- tion people were tortured or thrown into prison; upon but little more they were hanged, or burned at the 37 58 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK stake, or boiled alive, or broken on the wheel, or dis- membered—not to exhaust the list. In 1801 white slaves (men, this means, who were in slavery for debt) were driven through the streets of Philadelphia, with iron collars and chains about their necks. About the same time in little Delaware twenty crimes were pun- ishable with hanging. Crimes punishable with death were often offenses we now consider minor. The fol- lowing incident, culled from the Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins, goes to illustrate this: “Standing at a window I saw, emerging from a by-street that led from Bedford jail, a common farm-cart, drawn by a horse which was led by a laboring man. As I was above it, I could see too from the pallid faces of the crowd that there was something sad about it all. The horse moved at a snail’s pace, while behind walked a poor, sad couple with their heads bowed down, and each with a hand on the tailboard of the cart. They were evidently overwhelmed with grief. I learned a little later that the cart contained the body of their only son, a youth of seventeen, hanged that morning for setting fire to a stack of corn.” The attitude toward the criminal.—tIn keeping with the theory that extreme physical penalties might be counted on to deter crime, it was felt that the proper attitude toward criminals was hate. Sir James Stephen pronounced this dictum: “I think it highly desirable that criminals should be hated; that the punishment inflicted upon them should be so contrived as to give expression of the hatred, and to satisfy it.” No con- sideration was to be shown them. The old-time war- den put it brusquely: “These men are sent to us to be punished, and it is our duty to punish them good and plenty.” Little was to be done for them; everything harsh to them. CRUELTY 59 The retributive theory of punishment.—Retribu- tive justice they called it, and never perceived the con- tradiction involved in this phrase. And the church upheld them in it, especially when it came to the treat- ment of heretics. It taught that no punishment known could fit quite so heinous a crime as to disbelieve the church. With no uncertain sound the church let it be known that people were to go its way or would be put out of the way. Not that the church itself would do anything like that! It simply handed you over to “the secular arm’’; that attended to the rest. If you care to know how it worked, read what the Duke of Alva did in the time of Philip the Second. TORTUOUS THEORIES OF EVIDENCE A reversion.—In the matter of obtaining evidence as to whether or not people were guilty of these crimes there is an even stranger tale to tell. The Greek jurists who adhered to the Stoical philosophy were sticklers for fairness when it came to evidence. They viewed with horror the idea of condemning a man unheard. They held to the theory, acknowledged as sound every- where now, that the defendant is acquitted if the ac- cuser does not prove his case. This, you notice, puts the burden of proof upon the accuser. But in Europe, for nearly a thousand years, the burden of proof was thrown upon the accused! Nor could the accused give such proof as to-day is accepted in any court of law. No; numberless superstitious customs and conditions were prescribed for him; beyond these it was not his to go. How was it possible for people so to backslide from the Greeks? The wager of battle.—The answer brings us around to superstition. Tacitus said that the early tribes be- 60 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK lieved “God especially present with those in battle.’”? You remember the story of David and Goliath. A courageous warrior was selected by one side to contend with one from the other, and the result of the conflict convinced both of the armies which side God was on. But however it roots back, this superstitious theory resulted in the use of the single combat as the test of truth. Note: this was not a duel, although it was doubtless the parent of the duel. To quote a quaint old sentence, ‘‘The battle of two men sufficeth to de- clare the truth, so that victory is holden for the truth.’ It seems unbelievable now that there should ever have been a time when the personal battle could decide cases of law. It seems even less credible that some of the colonists deemed it a real grievance against England that they were being deprived, by English legislation, of the right of wager of battle in criminal cases. A litigant finding that his case was going against him, could accuse a witness of perjury, challenge him to combat, and so fight it out. All of which had a hu- morous side. Instances are vouched for where the right was extended to challenge the court. A man whose case was defeated in court might be seen fight- ing it out with the judge who had decided against him! The wager of battle was not totally abolished in Eng- land until 1819. But there is a sobering side to all this, when one begins to compare the theory of the wager of battle with the theory of war. Is there much difference after all? Ordeal.—Another way of determining one’s guilt or innocence was by means of an ordeal. The ordeal, it was believed, provided a miraculous decision as to the *Reprinted from Gesta Christe, by C. Loring Brace, by per- mission of the publishers. * Ibid., George H. Doran Company. CRUELTY 61 truth of an accusation or a claim. This belief also roots far back. Among ancient Babylonians, Greeks, Hebrews, as among the medieval Christians, ordeals were in use. The taking of poison, contact with red- hot iron or boiling water, or ability to swallow a con- secrated portion of food—these were some of the ordeals employed. Divine intervention was counted upon to save the accused from harm, if innocent. Most of the ordeals were of such a character that, un- less one was able to practice illusion, conviction was practically certain. Torture.—Along with the tragic notion that the right was revealed through a fight or that guilt or inno- cence could be established through an ordeal, came the idea that truth could be elicited through torture. As an example of the refinement to which torture developed, the case of Doctor Fian, of Edinburgh, in 1591, is quoted by Doctor Cutten. “When the rack proved in- effectual, the boots were tried, and during this he fainted from pain. Later his fingernails were riven out with pincers, and long needles thrust their entire length into the quick. Again he was consigned to the boots and kept there ‘so long, and abode so many blows in them that his legs were crushed and beaten together as small as might be, and the bones and flesh so bruised that the blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance.’ ’’? Motley, in his Dutch Republic, gives this gruesome picture of it: “The torture took place at midnight, in a gloomy dungeon, dimly lighted with torches. The victim—whether man, matron, or tender virgin—was strapped naked and stretched upon the wooden bench. Water, weights, fires, pulleys, * Reprinted from The Psychological Phenomena of Christian- ity, George B. Cutten, by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner’s Sons. 62 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK screws—all the appliances by which the sinews could be strained without cracking, the bones crushed with- out breaking, and the body racked exquisitely without giving up its ghost, were now put into operation. The imagination sickens when striving to keep pace with their dreadful realities.”’ Tue BETTER Way The Christianizing of the means of evidence.— It will need a chapter by itself to give a fair idea of the change that has come over men in their view of crime. Let us here content ourselves with pointing out why the ancient methods are no longer used. “Religion,” as Doctor Betts has said, “is a part of an integral life process and a vital function operating con- jointly with other factors in human experience.”* It is, therefore, quite impossible to separate the religious influence from other influences in the doing away of the whole ilk of ghastly methods once used to obtain evidence. We know that the revival of interest in Roman and Grecian law had much to do with it. On the other hand, this revival itself was influenced very largely by the lawyers of the church who were, for the most part, also its priests. There is plenty of proof, moreover, that always in the church voices were lifted against the barbarism of the wager of battle and against ordeals. Let a few examples suffice. The first code in which the wager of battle was definitely forbidden was enacted by the Norsemen of Iceland, at just about the time Christian- ity was introduced among them. Saint Abogard, Archbishop of Lyons, wrote the emperor in the year 826: “The faithful mind must not suppose that Al- *The Curriculum of Religious Education. The Abingdon Press. CRUELTY 63 mighty God desires to reveal the secret things of many by hot water or hot iron, or by cruel battle.”® From about this time onward, Popes and many civic rulers sought to discourage these methods of obtaining evi- dence. Yet they persisted. It takes a long time to cast out those habits of thought and of action that have their root in the fiercer passions of man. But the leaven was working. At the end of the sixteenth century Sir Thomas Smith wrote of the judgment by battle: “This, at this time is not much used, partly because of long time the Pope and the clergy, to whom in past time ‘we were much subject, always cryed against it as a thing damnable and unlawful.”® And, to quote this picturesque writer again: “The men of the church who of long time have had dominion in our consciences, and would bring things to a more mod- eration, have much detested this kind of trial and judgment.”* The appeal to violence departs.—As_ people be- came familiar, through the reading of their own Bibles, with the teachings of the New Testament, there gradually dawned on them something of Jesus’ view of life. In various ways they reached the conviction that “love is the fulfilling of the law.” This convic- tion naturally made its way into legislation. Methods of torture, therefore, had to go by the board. Nor could the mode of punishing heretics survive in the light of it. Men came to see that one cannot kill ideas by killing men. There is a sort of immortality about them that neither thumb-screw, rack, nor flame can successfully counteract. Of course the world is not wholly rid of violence, * Reprinted from Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, by per- mission of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. * Ibid. * Ibid. 64 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK as lynchings, riots, and war amply demonstrate. But ever since the life of Jesus has come to the front a change of climate has come over all the realm of our thought. Instead of the retributive theory of pun- ishment, the reformative has come. Instead of resort to violence, persuasion is being used. ‘The basis of hate is departing in favor of the basis of love. Once the world became convinced of the value of the soul, and of the power of that Saviour whose name was called Jesus just because “‘he saves men from their sins”; once his compassion for the unprivileged and unfortunate became clear, there was no living longer with the notions of hate and of force. It used to be said in the olden days, “You must give criminals all that is coming to them.” To-day we say the same thing, but now it has a different meaning. For, of all that is coming to them, nothing is more their due than understanding and sympathy, and, where it is possible, reclamation to the better life. For Discussion i. Is it enough for churches to conduct religious services in jails? That should be the nature of them? Is there anything they could do besides? 2. If you were warden of a prison, what would you do for your prisoners? 3. Name some undesirable beliefs. Do they influence conduct? How would you go about it to change them for the better? 4. Is physical punishment always wrong? To what extent is force justified in the treatment of crimi- nals? Should capital punishment be abolished everywhere? 5. Have you ever heard of the “third-degree” in police work? (Some member of the class might look up this matter and report.) CRUELTY 6s 6. Can you suggest any ways in which the activities of the police and the courts might be Christianized? SUGGESTED READINGS Bower, L. F., The Economic Waste of Sin, Chap. I. Langdale, J. W., Citizenship and Moral Reform, Chap. VI. Diefendorf, D. F., The Christian in Social Relationship, Chap. VIII. CHAPTER VII SUPERSTITION It is sobering to reflect that mankind has been longer in the grip of superstition than it has been out of it. To-day, when people dread walking under ladders, or have a care not to number thirteen, or knock wood, or carry rabbits’ feet, we call that superstition. Yet these give scarcely an inkling of the hold superstition once had upon people’s lives. Christianity had its rise among people who had a lot of it, and it spread among people who had even more. BELIEF IN MALIGNANT POWERS Demoniacal possession,—The belief that people could be possessed of demons existed quite generally in the ancient civilizations. Originally, the distinction between the divine and the demon was not always rig- idly made. But gradually the term “demon” came to stand for an evil spirit. The belief became prevalent that demons were the emissaries of the devil, who was lord of them all. For us the world to-day is full of destructive and dangerous bacilli. For most people, throughout centuries, the world was full of evil spirits, who had power to take up their abode in men. They believed that demons were able so to enter a person as to control him completely. This was called demoniacal possession. For centuries this belief went virtually unchallenged; until relatively recently it per- sisted throughout Christendom. Exorcism.— The early Christians did not surrender 66 SUPERSTITION 67 their belief in demons, but they felt themselves pos- sessed of power to overcome them. They deemed it part of their calling to cast out demons, which they did in the name of Jesus. In their attacks upon evil spir- its they often dealt mighty blows to the spirit of evil. Yet their very ardor against demons tended to increase their belief in them. Add to this the church’s contact with pagan cultures, and it will not be difficult to see why certain formulas, many of them magical, began to grow up. As time went on the use of these formu- las became confined to the priests. So it comes that, to this day, one who is ordained to the Roman Catho- lic priesthood is commissioned, among other items, as an exorcist. When Protestantism came into being exorcism became a subject of disrepute. Luther and Melanchthon favored it; Zwingli and Calvin set them- selves resolutely against it. The insane and epileptic.—It is the practical dam- age done by this belief with which we are here con- cerned. Insanity and epilepsy were attributed to this source. The insane were not sick; they had devils! “He hath a demon,” came to be the explanation of a man whose mind was diseased. You can imagine what type of treatment this belief resulted in. To be sure, provisions for these unfortunates were made at a few shrines. Yet, even at these, the treatment was not quite considerate. At one of them—Saint Nun’s—the pa- tient was plunged backward into the water and then dragged to and fro until his mental excitement ceased. The theory was that the demons possessing these per- sons deserved no gentle treatment. If they would not be exorcised, you had best chain them down or re- lentlessly torture them! Of course there were vast numbers of the insane who never got to a shrine. They lived wild, haunted 68 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK lives and wandered aimlessly. In some sections it was part of the duty of the public executioners to ex- pel from the towns, by flogging, any lunatics who en- tered their streets. We have it on the authority of a noble physician who worked among them in the first part of the nineteenth century that these unfortunate people were “treated worse than criminals, reduced to a condition worse than that of animals. I have seen them naked, covered with rags, and having only straw to protect themselves against the cold moisture and the hard stones they lie upon, deprived of air, of water to quench thirst, and all the necessaries of life, given up to mere gaolers and left to their surveillance. 1 have seen them in their narrow and filthy cells with- out light and air, fastened with chains in these dens in which one would not keep wild beasts. This I have seen in France, and the insane are everywhere in Europe treated in the same way.” “Bedlam broke loose.’’—This saying harks back to “Bedlam,” an institution originally founded as a priory, but into which, after a time, lunatics were re- ceived. It was rebuilt as an asylum for the insane in 1676.. The methods employed there, and the con- ditions that prevailed, earned for this institution a most unsavory reputation. Bedlam is a fair illustration of the little care given at best to the diseased in mind during most of the years that Christianity has been in the earth, A servant of humanity—No great advance in the humane and scientific care of the insane was made until the last seventy-five years. But a man who died about a century ago did most to bring it about. Phil- lippe Pinel, a French surgeon, was a happy combina- tion of scientist and propagandist. He suggested moral remedies for the insane and was the father of SUPERSTITION 69 modern psychiatry. But this is not all. He made an issue of it. He called upon people to awake to the enormity of the injustice perpetrated upon this wretched and suffering class. He did more than any other man to introduce the humane treatment of the insane. He was one God inspired. He lived his life in devotion to Christ. Once interest had been aroused, other Christians took up the work. Lord Shaftesbury in 1828 publicly advocated better treatment of them and from that day to this, all over the civilized world, humane laws have been enacted to protect the men- tally defective. Such a change has been wrought by this time in our thought and treatment of the insane that we find it hard to believe the conditions that ex- isted a hundred years ago. Now, on the basis of scien- tifically determined degrees of insanity, and increas- ingly in the spirit of Jesus, specialized treatment is accorded those who suffer in this way. As we look back at the past, we feel that not insanity, but man’s treatment of it, was demoniac. THE BELIEF IN MALIGNANT PURPOSES Partners of the devil.—A lunatic was an ordinary person possessed of an evil spirit. But a witch was an evil person, in league with an evil spirit. A witch was supposed to have entered voluntarily into partnership with the devil to control a demon and use it for ma- lignant purposes. Witches were said to have signed the agreement with their own blood in Satan’s book. It was thought that they communed with the devil in the celebration of Black Mass. All sorts of weird, supernatural tricks might be done by them, They were supposed to be able to transform themselves into ani- mals, to kill and eat children, to ride broomsticks through the air at night, to visit all sorts of torment 70 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK upon innocent people. By virtue of their agreement with the devil, they were thought especially to have it in for the people of God. One who was “old and woman and alone” stood good chances of being seized as a witch upon some bit of fantastic evidence. A mischief-making text.—“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” people read in their Bibles. This had a twofold result. First, it was offered in proof of the reality of witchcraft. This was buttressed by the biblical story of the witch of Endor and similar refer- ences. This is the reason why the Reformation had so little immediate effect upon this belief. Luther and Wesley both expressed implicit faith in it. The latter opined that “the giving up of witchcraft is the giving up of the Bible.” In the second place, this text pre- scribed the one type of punishment to be visited upon those who were guilty of it: they had to be put to death. And with pathetic zeal people proceeded to carry out the mandate the text expressed. Persecution of the witches.—Those accused of witchcraft were in for a rough time. One of the surest ways of determining guilt was the finding of witch- spots. We understand now what these are. We know how people suffering from hysteria are often insensi- tive to pain in certain parts of the body, but this knowl- edge has only come recently. In witchcraft days peo- ple saw in these spots tokens of the devil’s power. Armed with long needles, officials would hunt up the accused. If any spots on their bodies proved painless when the needles were run in, that was all the evidence needed to prove their guilt. There were other methods. Once upon a time a man by the name of Matthew Hop- kins was the “Witchfinder-General” in England. He would tie the right thumb of the suspect to the great toe of the left foot, and the left thumb to the great toe SUPERSTITION 71 of the right foot. Then the victim was wrapped in a heavy blanket and placed in a river or pond. If she sank and was drowned, she was innocent; if she floated, she was guilty, taken out and burned alive! What wonder that many witches (not a few of whom had actually come to believe that they were what they were charged to be) preferred suicide to trial. Some his- torians are of the opinion that from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century millions were tortured and put to death on a charge of witchcraft. Others think the total less, but all are agreed that an appalling number of people fell victim to this belief. Even young children and dogs were not spared. The more vicious the treat- ment of witches, the more virtuous it was deemed. The strange case of Salem.—In our country witch- craft had its innings toward the close of the seventeenth century. Some young girls had been instructed in palmistry and magic by the West Indian slave of the pastor of the Salem village church. Subsequently they accused this slave and two old women of bewitching them. The excitement ran high; others were accused, and within a few months hundreds had been arrested and a number hanged. In Boston, Cotton Mather, ministering at the time to the largest congregation in New England, used voice and pen to affirm his belief in witchcraft and his conviction that those guilty of it should be done to death. Thus came about the orgy of witch killing which makes such pathetic reading in our history. One phase peculiar to this situation was that some were put to death, not for practicing witch- craft, but for denying belief in it! Before long, how- ever, a decided reaction set in. Increase Mather’s hint that the accusers, and not the accused, were the real victims of Satan, turned the tables so neatly that the appetite for the whole witch-business was speedily lost. 72 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK THe DESTRUCTION OF MALIGNANT BELIEFS We have seen what unspeakable cruelty resulted from these two superstitions—belief in demoniacal pos- session and belief in witchcraft. In the chapters that follow we shall encounter still more cruelty. What we should particularly note at this juncture is not by what legislation or methods this cruelty was ended, but why these superstitions finally died out. « The power of Jesus.—If you read carefully, you will see how in the New Testament the axe is laid at the root of the belief in demons. True, the writers themselves were the children of their age; they be- lieved in demons and in demoniacal possession. But they stated a principle that was ultimately to prove the undoing of superstition. That principle was their faith in the power of Jesus Christ. Believers came to feel that demons did not matter when Jesus was about. Paul had the feeling that they were “coming to naught.” That feeling spread. If “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,” life could be trusted. By setting men free from fear, Jesus drove out superstition. “But,” you may say, “‘see how very slow superstition was in going.” Yes, but remember how deep-seated was the belief in demons. Moreover, up to the era of modern science no other explanation was at hand for many of the puzzling facts for which we now account in other ways. The belief was not wiped out, it was driven out. It was a long and drawn-out process, slow but sure. At first, but occasionally, some thinker per- ceived the significance of Jesus to this belief and re- marked upon it. So Tatian, in the Second century, expressed the belief that “Christ sets men free from ten thousand tyrants,” and gloried in the fact that SUPERSTITION 73 “instead of demons that deceive we have learned one Master who deceiveth not.” With the years others found this new freedom by faith in Jesus Christ. It needed but the modern emphasis on the teachings and life of Jesus to put an end to the fear of demons. Self-protection.—There were other reasons for the breakdown of these superstitions, complementary if not similar. One of these was that no one was really safe who lived where these superstitions existed. In an atmosphere of suspicion and suggestibility there was no telling who would be the next victim. Once this point became clear, the jurists threw all the weight of their influence against it. In this they found ready allies in many legislators and preachers. The development of science.—Later on in this book we shall trace Christianity’s relationship to sci- ence. We shall then see that Jesus set the mind free. Just now we need but remind ourselves that there were always those who had what Huxley called ‘“‘a passion for veracity.” The world is in massive debt to such minds as these. Witchcraft killed itself by its own excesses, but the superstition back of it was killed by men who, convinced of the goodness at the Heart of the universe, patiently studied natural law and the laws of human nature. Once the discovery was made that not Satan, but sickness, lay back of insanity, the world began to turn about face in its treatment of it. The contribution of the Reformation.—The Ref- ormation had much to do with the development of science and its resultant “casting out of fear.” It must not be forgotten that the Reformation was a movement within Christianity, and, indeed, within the church. A well-informed writer well says: ““Men were not free to follow investigations in nature or history while the medieval church controlled the universities. 74 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK All thought was measured by the standards of the medieval dogma and world outlook. . . . The tram- mels which hindered thought would never have been broken without the new religious freedom. This made possible modern progress in all departments. When the mind was also freed through the freedom of the soul it could search justly and investigate honestly. The fact that now men can and dare think for them- selves is an outcome of religious freedom which broke the bondage of the medieval church over men’s minds.’”? In other words, the Reformation created a congenial climate in which science could live and grow. You must take account of this if you wish to be fair to all the facts that of right should be considered in con- nection with the overthrow of superstition. What Christian convictions wrought.—The Ref- ormation had also sounded a new note of self-esteem. “The priesthood of believers’ was something more than a doctrine. It was the self-assertion of men who knew themselves souls. They felt that the resources of God were within their reach. They believed that, in men, no devil could hope to prevail over God. Their trust in God dispelled all fear of what demon or witch could do. Devils there might be; but they were sure to move out when God came into the soul. Out of such a conviction as this God came to speak in the hymn: “The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!” The word became flesh.—Their confidence in God was enriched by the spirit of Jesus. The Reformation *). W. A. Haas in The Lutheran. Reprinted by permission. SUPERSTITION 70 had also spread the Bible broadcast. Every one read in his own tongue what the Book had to say. Those who read it for themselves could not help but notice the com- passion Jesus had shown for the lunatics and those who in his day were accounted demon-possessed. Christ had practiced no cruelty upon them; he had never brought them to trial; he had invariably brought them the love of God. To sum it all up, the spirit of truth and the spirit of love destroyed the superstitions we have been speaking of. When one has these two one lacks very little of Christianity. The confidence Jesus had in God and the love he had for man, by means of their contagion, have slain many superstitions and shall yet smite many more. This, then, is the sig- nificant thing: not that the insane are treated better or that witches are unheard of now, but that these super- stitions can never again arise. They are dead beyond all hope of resurrection. The spirit of Jesus has too great a hold on men’s lives for them ever to recur. For DIscussION 1. Can we have a Christian world so long as insanity is in it? 2. Have any of the teachings or methods of the church fostered insanity ? 3. Do any superstitions remain that still vitally affect humanity? If so, name some. 4. Are good thinkers necessarily free from superstition? 5. What could the church do to break the hold of pre- vailing superstitions ? 6. Does any religion beside Christianity fight supersti- tion? If not, why not? SUGGESTED READINGS Glover, T. R., Jesus in the Experience of Men, Chap. I. Thomson, J. Arthur, The Outline of Science, Chap. XV. CHAPTER VIII PENOLOGY IF you wish conclusive proof of “man’s inhumanity to man,” familiarize yourself with the history of pun- ishment and prisons. This will also show you that “the old order changeth,” and that the race is really getting on. CRIMINALS AND THEIR CRIMES Slow progress.—Professor Moberly has pointed out that mankind has dealt with crime upon three levels. First, there was the level of nature, where crime was regarded as a nuisance of which the public was bound to get rid. How it got rid of it mattered not at all. The treatment of the criminal did not enter into con- sideration. Second, there was the level of justice. Here ethical considerations carried weight. Efforts were made to equate penalty and offense. But only on the third level does one reach Christian ground. This is the level of redemption. Here the effort is less to pay a man back for his wrongdoing and more to restore him to rightdoing; indeed, every power is exerted to make him a lover of right. Humanity has, for the most part, moved on the first level. It has been content with the lowest. Let no one suppose that this level has been totally discarded to date. There are still glaring examples of its popu- larity. The second is being increasingly incorporated in legal procedure. The third is espoused by a growing group. Those who approach the problem of crime on 76 PENOLOGY 77 the level of redemption have still to endure the ancient taunt that they are futile idealists. “T was in prison.”—The introduction of the prison- sentence indicated some advance. Prior to that, penal codes put their trust in more abrupt methods—the scaffold, the stake, wild beasts, mutilation, torture, exile, slavery. The coming of the prison-term was a move toward the humane in that it at least stopped short of death. Yet how much better death would have been than many of the incarcerations! John Howard, reporting conditions as they existed toward the end of the eighteenth century, said that most of the prisons were dark, dirty, with little ventilation; the food was unwholesome; water was supplied in scanty doles; prisoners had putrid straw for beds; they were all in irons and at the caprice of the jailors, few of whom had been selected for their humane views. The jails were overcrowded and criminals of both sexes were indiscriminately herded together; few, if any, ennobling influences were brought to bear upon their lives. Thus were they kept “in durance vile.” John Wesley, in an earlier day, having visited the Marshalsea Prison, had called it “a picture of hell.” The criminal class. —But who were they? And who are they to-day? Investigations prove that children of physically, mentally, emotionally, morally deficient parents usually enter life with criminal predispositions. These are the folks who have made their way to jail. But they are not the only ones—probably not even the majority. There are others who have been made, and not born, criminal. The environment in which they lived encouraged them to wrongdoing. The average age of commencing a criminal career is seventeen; the average of conviction, twenty-three. It is noteworthy that, just when the sense of justice 78 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK should be to the fore and the spirit of adventure most pronounced, most criminals start out. The sense of outrage caused by suffering from poverty and oppres- sion; the normal desire for excitement, thwarted hope- lessly ; idleness due to unemployment—these are forces that join hands with gambling dens, etc., toward mak- ing youths criminals. It stands to reason that the youths themselves are by no means devoid of blame; but society is responsible for a big share of their sin. So it has always been. Conditions have been far worse than they are to-day. Are all “criminals” bad?—Let it not be forgotten that these jails were often peopled by accused persons as well as by condemned ones. Not only for crimes committed, but in detention for trials, were they sent to jail. This worked terrible hardships. Multitudes have been jailed for having had the misfortune to get into debt, thus making the possibility of paying their debts all the more remote. It has been said that two classes of people have always gone to jail: the best and the worst. It ought to move us to serious thought that the present is probably no exception to the past: good people are doubtless there now! History fur- nishes a formidable list of the spiritually élite who have been behind prison bars: “Brave souls who took the perilous trail And felt the vision could not fail.’’2 All of which is proof that many have been prisoners who never have been criminals. CHRISTIANS AND CRIMINALS Better prisons.—The improvements that have been made in prisons and prison-systems date back to John *Edwin Markham, reprinted by permission. PENOLOGY 79 Howard, who uttered such a protest against conditions existing in his day (1726-1790) that it rang around the world. According to the inscription on his ceno- taph in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, in London, this cour- ageous philanthropist “‘followed an open, but unfre- quented path to immortality.” One interesting fact about his life is that his great work was done in the last quarter of his life. Not until he was forty-seven did he gain his insight into prison life. At that age he obtained the office of high sheriff at Bedford. It changed his life for him. He became a flaming evan- gel on behalf of the better care of the prisoner. To the credit of his country, be it said that he met with an almost immediate response. The rooms of the jails were ordered cleaned and regularly ventilated; infirm- aries had to be provided for the sick; those in rags were to be clothed; underground dungeons were to be put to the least possible use; not only was the health of the prisoners to be protected but also were the morals. While many wardens doubtless failed to live up to all that was prescribed for them, a new standard was set up, and prisons ever since have been measured by these higher standards. Yet there are many prisons to-day that come woefully short of these. A Christian stirs the world.—Howard’s interest having been aroused, he proceeded, crusader-fashion, to discover what was the situation in countries other than his own. He was impressed with the comparative absence of crime in Holland, which he attributed to the reformatory, industrial, and spiritual methods em- ployed with criminals there. About the conditions in France he “‘cried aloud and spared not,” to the utter disgust of the French officials. He knew how to write; his pen was a mighty weapon, but it was used only for good. Finally, while in Russia, ministering to one who 80 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK had been stricken with the camp-fever, he himself took the disease and succumbed to it. His biographer said of him: “The midday sun is not more evidently the cause of light and warmth and fruitfulness than that Christian love which animated, induced, and constrained Howard to consecrate him- self entirely to God’s service, and to sacrifice his life rather than that fellow men should suffer, whom he might assist and relieve.” To the end of his life he prayed as earnestly as he worked: “Do thou, O Lord! visit the prisoners and captives and manifest thy strength in my weakness. Help, Almighty God! for in thee do I put my trust, for thou art my rock.” From his day to ours prisons and prison systems have changed for the better all over the world. Other noble men and women took his cause to heart. Stephen Grellet, with the blood of nobility in his veins and with a deep and fervent religious experience, was astounded at the lot of women prisoners. Elizabeth Fry, herself the mother of a large family, desiring most of all to “simply and singly” follow her Master “in the way of his requirements,” joined forces with Grellet and other Christian folks, and moved the authorities to justice and mercy toward these unfortunates. Still the story is sad.—The whole atmosphere about prisons has been changed. In our country hun- dreds of them offer vastly improved opportunities for the physical, mental, social, and spiritual advancements of the inmates. No one should withhold a just mede of praise. What with the indeterminate sentence, parole systems, and the like, we have a right to hope for great progress in the near future. Yet it cannot be said that all is well with our punitive institutions. Crime is still communicated in many of them; so is disease and death. .All too many offenders still become “repeat- PENOLOGY 81 LPs ers.” Not infrequently jails still deform those they are meant to reform. Cruelty has not been wholly obliterated. The whole country was shocked a short time ago upon learning of several instances of peonage. While prisons are coming into more competent hands, prison systems still fall prey to the political spoils sys- tem. Not long ago the writer encountered an up- roariously intoxicated prison inspector holding a lucra- tive and responsible position in the penal control of a great State. Prison labor for private profit yet remains to be abolished in many places. We must never forget that often the greatest suffer- ers are not those who go to jail, but their families. Not only does a social stigma attach itself to them but they are left to shift for themselves, while the bread-winner gets only a pittance for the convict labor he performs during his term. THe Lovinc SEARCH FOR THE FACTS Greater justice.—Jeremy Bentham had reached manhood by the time Howard was doing his most telling work. He gave great momentum to Howard’s efforts by his inquiry into criminal law and procedure. Better laws and more equitable procedure came to ob- tain. The law is not yet perfect. But even more than law we need understanding. Mere justice demands that we shall recognize that many prisoners are not criminals, and also that all criminals are not in the same class. We have noticed that some are born crim- inals. It is becoming clear that they cannot help it. The conviction is growing that society is responsible for permitting them to be born. These are to be judged, not in the light of their misdeeds, but in the light of their defects. A monk with the spirit of truth—The surpassing 82 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK contribution toward.a more just view of the criminal class had its inception with one who was never con- scious of it. Johann Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk who became abbot of Brunn, unpretentiously carried on some experiments in his cloister garden, and sent the result of his researches to a former teacher of his in Vienna. But this worthy savant was too busy to pay much attention to what his pupil had done. The findings of Mendel first appeared in 1866 in an obscure publication. Not until 1900, eighteen years after Mendel’s death, did biologists begin to appreciate the value of the ex- periments he had made. His study of genetics revealed the trail of heredity. Others have set out upon it, and with amazing results. This work has direct bear- ing upon many problems, among which are those of insanity and criminality. This obscure monk has put the whole world in his debt. The problem of those who are born criminals is being solved in the light of the discoveries and suggestions he made. We are now learning that not merely mental but emotional defects are responsible for crime, and attention is being paid those who are deficient in self-control and in thought. Down to rock-bottom.—We have also noticed that some are made criminals. \With these, as with the born ones, more appropriate methods are now pursued. Five methods have been used in the treatment of crim- inals: the retributive, the deterrent, the preventive, the reformative, and the causative. The retributive is go- ing into the discard. Men are not reformed by retri- bution; vengeance rights no wrongs, be the vengeance public or private. We are coming to suspect that “retributive justice’ is a contradiction in terms, since “we can be just only to those we love.” We must be on guard lest, in our eagerness to aid the criminal, we PENOLOGY 83 aid crime; hence those who sin against society must be punished ; but we are no longer counting upon punish- ment to be a deterrent of crime. The preventive method has not proved as effective as the causative, which attacks the causes of crime. In our treatment of crime, therefore, the motive must be reformative: “Brethren, if a man be over- taken in a fault, restore such a one.” Of those who in recent years have wrought valiantly in this regard the name of Thomas Mott Osborne stands out. In his system he tried to keep the consciences as well as the minds of the prisoners active, and to develop their social regard. It is along lines such as these that mod- ern penology moves. Most of all, the method of treating crime should be causative. We should go to the roots of the business. We should discover why criminals are made, why their best instincts have be- come misdirected, why they are anti-social. If their disorder is due to disorder in our social order, that too should be made clear. What can Christians do?—They can see to it that prison reform is kept alive; that justice is meted out equally to all; that money shall not favor a man before the law nor race be counted against him; that good men and women are in control of our courts and Leg- islators; that convicts’ families are provided for, and that only men and women with the Christian spirit shall be intrusted with institutions of correction. They can, moreover, see that the scientifically ascertained facts concerning heredity are applied to the criminal class. For DIscussIOoN 1. How about the jail in your community? 2. Should the fact that a candidate for sheriff is, or is 84 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK not, a Christian man, be considered as a factor for his eligibility ? 3. What is the difference between a bootlegger and a conscientious objector? 4. Both Jesus and Paul went to jail. Can you mention some other great folks who were treated similarly? 5. Would you give a man a job who has just come out of jail? 6. Is there not danger that our interest in fair treatment for criminals shall dull our own abhorrence of crime? How can we best retain a true perspective ? SUGGESTED READINGS Shillitto, Edward, Christian Citizenship, Chap. VIII. Diefendorf, Dorr F., The Christian in Social Relation- ships, Chap VII. Bower, L. F., The Economic Waste of Sin, Chap. VII. CHAPTER IX DRINK NoTHinG in the recent history of the Church of Christ in the United States has been more telling than its victory over the liquor traffic. Millions scarcely realize what has come to pass. It all came so sud- denly that it has, figuratively and actually, taken away their breath! Yet, had they had eyes to see, they would have known that it has been for a long time coming. A FoRMIDABLE FOE An ancient enemy.—Drink is an old and a for- midable foe. The liquor problem is probably as old as civilization. Read the story of any people and pres- ently you come upon the story of its drinking habits. Bacchus, originally an Indian deity, found his way into other countries under this name and others, and every- where there have been many to make obeisance to him. Homer twenty-seven hundred years ago be-: lieved that “the joys of wine . . . are the rights of age.” Two inscribed jars of wine were unearthed in the tomb of Tutankhamen, king of Egypt nearly fif- teen hundred years before Christ, which tomb was entered November 29, 1922. Hundreds of Bible passages refer to intoxicants and many of them register the ancient conflict with convivial concoc- tions. The first chapter of the book of Daniel has been regarded as the first of temperance tracts. A powerful enemy.—Drink has been no easy 85 86 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK enemy to cope with. It has proved a foe worthy of the steel. Noah is reported to have had his troubles with it. Lycurgus, king of Thrace, came off the better in the tussle. He passed the first-known prohibition act a millennium prior to the coming of Christ. Nor was he the only one to take the problem to heart. In 459 B. c. China faced its liquor problem and decided on prohibition. Most of the Eastern religions set themselves like flint against drink. Mohammed’s in- sistence that his followers refrain from intoxicants has been one of the greatest boons ever bestowed by one man upon his fellows. Had he been equally clear and clean in other regards, his name and fame would be unsullied in the earth. In Jesus’ day, men seriously debated whether grace ought to be said until water had been added to the wine. Yet Bacchus has been peculiarly persistent. If you threw him out of the front door, he sneaked back by way of the cellar. If he was ousted by legislation, he could always stage a come-back because he was so se- curely enthroned in the habits of men. Many, and with more reason, might have testified with Omar Khayyam: “Of all that one should care to fathom, I Was never deep in anything but—Wine.”’ An enemy of repute.—Cassio, speaking with Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello, says: “O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!’ But in many a quarter liquor had a far better reputation. It had stood high in the esteem of numerous religions, to whom intoxication afforded manifestations of the divine. It made its way into folk- lore and literature and drama and song and art. DRINK 87 Drink came to be accepted as an indispensable com- panion in the best of society. Time came when it was thought conducive, not simply to pleasure, but to thought. Hence Oliver Goldsmith wrote in his unre- generate days: “Let schoolmasters puzzle their brains With grammar and nonsense and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.” In later days, when liquor had all but put the finishing touches on such genius as he had, when he was “‘with- out friends, recommendations, money or influence,” Samuel Johnson set him right on the matter. Liquor, moreover, came to be extolled as the promoter of courage. Robert Burns, who fell prey to alcohol (an Arabian physician named Abul Kasin, who lived in the eleventh century, was the first to use the word “alcohol” ) wrote this eulogy: “John Barleycorn was a hero bold, Of noble enterprise, For if you do but taste his blood, It will make your courage rise.” What brought so fair a reputation down? Simply this: the facts were against it. Once they became known, it was all up with liquor. Now the poets had a different tale to tell. Poe, the drinker, died at forty, while Whittier and Holmes lived to be eighty-five; Bryant, eighty-four; Longfellow, seventy-five; Lowell, seventy-three. It was only natural, therefore, that Longfellow should observe: “Youth perpetual dwells in fountains, Not in flasks and casks and cellars.” 88 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK And John Masefield, a great English poet of to-day, feels called upon to warn his fellow men that “Every drop of drink accursed Makes Christ within you die of thirst.’’ THE CoNFLICT WITH THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC What has made it so desperately difficult to deal with this enemy of the human race is that it has been so firmly intrenched, not only in habits and customs, and in the arts, but in politics and business. The liquor forces made liquor habits well-nigh invulnerable. The men.to whom it brought lucrative profits had legisla- tion enacted by which it was made difficult for any to say it nay. In some countries to-day it thrives under the protection of the church. Even in our day prom- inent churchmen in Great Britain are brewery stock- holders. This is why the fighting is so difficult there. The early struggles against it—The story that follows confines itself to the United States. Let us go back to Lincoln again, who let it be known that he was down on the whole “‘pisen’’ business, and said that nothing that had alcohol in it should pollute his lips or corrupt his body and mind. In his Springfield speech in 1842 he said: “Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed. In it, more want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, no widows weeping. . . . When there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on earth—how proud the title of that land, which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions!” * Collected Poems of John Masefield, “The Everlasting Mercy.” The Macmillan Company, publishers. Reprinted by permission. a - DRINK 89 “Soldiers, faithful, true and bold.”—-In 1808 the first temperance society was formed. General Neal Dow was the father of modern prohibition. He was able to convince the people of Maine of its economic advantages, so that the State adopted prohibition in 1851. Others fought in the good fight. Clinton B. Fisk, John B. Gough, who, himself reclaimed from drink, brought to the issue a mighty combination of personality and oratory; John G. Woolley, Frances E. Willard, and more recently, J. Frank Hanly, William Jennings Bryan, and William A. Sunday, took prom- inent parts in the fray. Of all of these it 1s to be noted that they were followers of Jesus, doing what they did because they felt it to be in accordance with his will. Their enthusiasm for Jesus made them enemies of drink. Forces in the fight—Women have played a con- spicuous part in this emancipation. In 1873 a praying band knelt on the sanded floor of an old-time saloon, to consecrate its members to God in the battle against drink. Then came Frances E. Willard, living out her epigram: “Only the golden rule of Christ can bring in the golden age of man.” She saw to it that this move- ment, “born of Christ’s gospel,’ continued to be “cradled at his altars.” All of her life she knew what at the end of her life she witnessed—‘‘How beautiful it is to be with God!” She welded the feminine forces into unity, until the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was present in all the land to “agitate, educate, organize.” What a work it has done with its total ab- stinence pledges, its instruction of the young, its intro- duction of scientific temperance instruction into the schools, its incessant publicity, propaganda and prayer, to say nothing of its contribution to the allied cause of Woman Suffrage! The Prohibition Party arose and proceeded to inject the proposition into politics. 90 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Then came fraternal organizations and kindred move- ments. All of these helped to lay the foundations. The Anti-Saloon League.—But when, under the leadership of Howard H. Russell, the Anti-Saloon League was formed, “Ichabod” was written to stay on the doors of the liquor business, for its days were num- bered. This League both was, and put “the church in action against the saloon.” It chose the church as a basis for effort rather than the political parties, first, because the working church was “the natural foe of the drink traffic’; secondly, because the church could “meet defeat as often as was necessary to settle any question according to the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount.” It was a nonsectarian move- ment and nonpartisan, but it went about its work in approved political style. At first the League was ridi- culed, but the ridicule was short-lived; its effectiveness soon won it the grudging respect of the worst of its foes. Other factors.—The use of liquor made for eco- nomic inefficiency. The sociologists observed it to be a waste. As immigration increased, pro-alcoholic people came in by droves. The annual bill for liquor began to foot the colossal sum of five billion dollars. It hurt business, but it hurt the workers more. The liquor traffic, by taking the hard-earned money of the worker, helped to create the very poverty upon which the drink habit throve. It was a vicious link within a link. The medical men came to oppose it. Professor Kraepelin, of Munich, demonstrated beyond cavil, in 1892, that alcohol is a narcotic and not a stimulant, as many still thought it to be. Slowly but surely medical practice relinquished alcohol. There were political implications. The liquor traf- DRINK QI fic sought to manipulate the political parties for its own aggrandizement. To serve its own ends it did not hesitate to nullify the franchise of the people by the buying of votes and the corrupting of legislators. De- cent citizens became tired of that. All of which is but another way of saying that the liquor traffic was conducive to immorality. Statistics were gathered which showed the relationship of drink- ers to crime and vice. Drink was seen to be “one of the greatest contributing factors to destitution and delinquency.”’ It made brutal fathers, besotted moth- ers, immoral sons, erring daughters, neglected chil- dren, full jails. Christian men and women stood aghast at the spiritual damage it caused. THE VicToRY OVER THE Liguor TRAFFIC How the battle was won.—The Anti-Saloon League utilized the anger of the South at the bad liquor that had been sold the Negroes, and led in making five States dry in three years. The newer Western States followed suit. State after State followed, and where States did not vote dry, counties did, with the result that by 1912 most of the counties in this country were dry. Thirty-five out of forty-eight States had voted dry before federal action went into effect. In 1913, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution was proposed, but it was not until August, 1917, that the Senate, by a vote of sixty-five to twenty, passed the right to submit this amendment to the several States; and not until December of the same year was it passed by Congress. The honor of being the thirty-sixth State (required number) went to Nebraska in January of the following year. Only a few States refused to ratify, and most of these have since decided to come in out of the wet. Reenforced by timely economic and 92 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK war factors, the church had done what it started out to do. In the witty words of Wayne B. Wheeler, its brilliant leader in this fight, it had beat the liquor traf- fic ‘“wholesale, retail, and cocktail.” The nation thus officially chose to abstain from alcoholic beverages. It launched a new experiment in democracy. “‘A victory for the church.’’—If ever there was a clear-cut victory for the church, this was one. Dr. Frank Crane reported that “the little church on Main Street” had accomplished it. The moral appeal had swung both business and politics into line. “The pub- lic press,’ said Mr. Wheeler to the writer, “was gen- erally opposed to prohibition. . . . Business was cau- tious or indifferent except where some strong men were inspired through their relationship to the church. Political life generally was disposed to be unfriendly until the power of voting Christians alarmed some can- didates and replaced others with men of principle. None of the common factors of our national life were vitally concerned with prohibition to the extent the church was involved.” “Eternal vigilance the price of liberty.”—But the task of the church is not done. The victory must be preserved. This is not an easy thing to do. We have seen what a faculty drink has for coming back. For one thing, habits are not easily destroyed, especially once they have been socialized. To gratify appetite people will commit the most outrageous of sins. They will break the law and lie with a vengeance. They have circulated, for example, the story that prohibition makes for drug addiction. The evidence is abundant that liquor did just that. Many a weakling became a drug addict by the whisky route. Nevertheless, the church must see that this temptation too is put beyond the weak. But a more serious danger than the carry- DRINK 93 ing of pocket-flasks or misrepresentations is found in the apathy that settles down on good people once vic- tory has come. They act as if it were quite enough to get prohibition written into the law of the land. But far more important than this is the enforcing of it, and convincing the younger generation of the wisdom of the prohibitory statute, so that it shall become axi- omatic that it is necessary not only to “keep the man away from the liquor but to keep the liquor away from the man.” Pressing on to ultimate victory—Nor should it be forgotten that we have won but one battle in a long and bitter war. To be sure, our victory meant very much toward the ultimate doom of drink. But in large sections of the world drink is still enthroned. The churches have now put into the field the World League Against Alcoholism, which through the heroic services of such men as William E. (“Pussyfoot’’) Johnson, endeavors to create sentiment and guide action for the world-wide outlawing of this treacherous traffic. Here, then, are some of the evils against which Christianity has wrought valiantly. The power of Jesus has served to drive slavery from all but the last dim corners of the earth. The considerateness of Christ has immensely diminished cruelty. Wherever he has come superstition has gone. Punishments are now being measured by his standard of salvation. And to such follies as drink Christianity is spelling doom. For Discussion 1. What was Jesus’ contribution toward the abolition of the liquor traffic ? 94 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK 2. Did all of Protestantism unite in the battle with the liquor traffic? Did all of the Roman Catholic Church? What was the proportion of each? 3. Is alcohol necessary as a medicine? Would you use it as such? 4. Did the coming of the motion picture influence prohi- bition? How? Should the church see to it that there are adequate substitutes for the saloon? Name some. 5. How can the enforcement of the prohibition law be improved? 6. Should the church continue such agencies as the Anti- Saloon League or the World League Against Alco- holism? For how long? SUGGESTED READINGS Richardson, Norman E., The Liquor Problem. Iglehart, Ferdinand C., King Alcohol Dethroned. Bower, L. F., The Economic Waste of Sin, Chap. VI. PART Ti CHRISTIANITY AT WORK WITH HUMAN VALUES But one thing is needful, and ye shall be true To yourselves and the goal and the God that you seek; Yea, the day and the night shall requite it to you If ye love one another, if your love be not weak.! —Alfred Noyes. *From Collected Poems of Alfred Noyes. Reprinted by per- mission of Frederick A. Stokes Company, publishers. Pah es an Fi. ASO aa ' ff, ‘ * 2 nhs Bostitan) i ¢ 4 v Avis amen’ € CHAPTER X THE CHILD Ir you have a heart, you will be proud of what Christianity has done for the child. If you have eyes to see, you will be glad of what Christianity is doing for it now. Past ACHIEVEMENTS Exposure and its cure.—Few things are more gruesome than the stories that reach us out of the past of the treatment given children. A letter written in the year 1 A. D. was found in Egypt. In it an Egyptian Greek expressed to his wife his wishes concerning the child that had come: “If it was a male, let it live; if it was a female, cast it out.” The exposure of children was a common practice. Those who did not want them left them to starve, or killed them, and whether they fell prey to wild beasts or were placed into captivity for future immoral pur- poses, concerned them not at all. Both Plato and Aristotle gave exposure their approval. It comes with a shock when one learns that the most cultured race of that day saw no wrong in it. Seneca wrote: “Children, if unnaturally formed from birth, we drown. It is not anger, but reason, thus to separate the useless from the sound.”* Pliny coolly refers to those who, prob- ably from superstitious motives, hunt for the brains or the marrow of exposed children. How brutal all of this sounds to us who have been trained to listen to the *Reprinted from Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, by permis- sion of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. 97 98 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK one who said: “Whoever receives a little child like this for my sake, receives me.”’ Needless to say, the instinct of humanity was never totally silent against exposure. But, then, there were those who traded on this instinct! These men were inhuman enough to search the exposed children that were still alive and deform them, and then offer them for sale to the compassionate. Seneca who, as we have noticed, could see no wrong in exposure as such, could not tolerate this. It stirred him to the depths. He violently denounced it. Those little creatures with their curved backs, shortened limbs and broken joints brought out his ardent protest. It should be noted that in his day this practice was by no means uncommon in Rome. But his protests went for little, as had those of the Stoics among the philosophers before him. The Christian church speaks out.—The leaders of the Christian Church, from the very beginning and without exception, attacked this brutality with all the strength that was in them. In this instance, at least, they rang true to their Master. They taught that “the wicked alone can expose his children; for us, this impiety only inspires horror: first, because the most of these unfortunate little ones are destined for de- bauch; then, because we should fear the accusation of murder if they should die.”* Pauperism was wide- spread through the empire, but the Christian leaders would not even tolerate the suggestion that poverty was a permissible excuse for exposure or abandonment. Nor did they rest content with protest. They organ- ized to save those who were being exposed. The great Council of Nicaea, in the year 325, ordered hospitals for foundlings. The custom grew up in many churches * Reprinted from Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, by permis- sion of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. THE CHILD 99 to have receptacles where these children might be de- posited, after which they were turned over to the hos- pitals or orphanages which, in turn, were connected with the church. Gradually ameliorative laws got into the statute books, and at length the law came to regard the exposure of children worse than murder, since ex- posure struck at those who were too feeble and de- pendent to be able to defend themselves. Parental power Christianized.—Nor was this a particularly alluring world for such children as their parents retained. The power of the father had to be reckoned with. The Roman father could do as he wished with his child. He could sell his son into slav- ery; he could kill him if he chose. No one could inter- fere; he had complete control, both over the life and the property of the child. What was true of the Ro- man father obtained elsewhere. Primitive paternal power was a dreadful thing. The lot of the son was usually superior to that of the daughter. Public opin- ion and law changed in favor of the son long before it was altered out of consideration for the daughter. Seneca tells of a knight whom the people pursued with daggers because he had scourged his son to death. He had a legal right to do so, but it had come to be regarded as too severe. Yet at the same time it met with hearty approbation if a father, catching his daughter in a misdeed, killed her on the spot. What wrought the change of heart and law by which pater- nal power came to rest “in affection, not in atrocity’’? To quote an ancient writer: “Christian discipline grad- ually softened the severity of parental authority.” More specifically, it was the teaching and legislation of the church that was responsible for it. Under the leg- islation of Constantine, paternal “power” received a set-back from which it never recovered. Justinian 100 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK (528 A. D.) enacted the code in which the daughter re- ceived at least some consideration. Among Christian lawmakers the tendency to guarantee justice to the child developed everywhere. Yet much injustice remains. PRESENT PROBLEMS Child-marriage.—We must not forget that in most parts of the world the old idea of parental power still obtains in more or less modified forms. Consider the iniquity of child marriages. These are contracted by the thousands before the children reach their teens. In India “this custom, in a land of high mortality, has produced thousands of little widows and widowers. The boy may marry again, ... but the poor girl—her story is the saddest of all the suffering little women in the world. She is held responsible for the death of her husband, and as a criminal her hair is shaved off and her dearly loved ornaments are taken away and she... becomes the drudge of the family. She may not re- marry, but remains until the end of her life a poor, miserable soul—unless, of course, she be the mother of sons. This lifts her to a position of honor from which she cannot be completely displaced. The most com- mendable thing for the widow to do until comparatively recent time was to mount the funeral pile and be burned to death with the body of her husband.”* No wonder Christians are resolved that “Where a woman still is vassal, where a child is still a slave, There shall rise our instant bivouac, there be digged a tyrant’s grave.’ *"The Religions of Mankind, Edmund Soper, The Abingdon Press. ‘In the Dawn, by Odell Shepard. Reprinted by permission of the author. THE CHILD IOI Child-labor.—If you think India too far away to enter very deeply into your consciousness, you may look closer home and see child-labor reap the same grim harvest it has reaped throughout the world for years. Do not fail to keep in mind the distinction between child work, which is beneficial, and child-labor, which is blighting. Consider what a fight men and women with the spirit and mind of Jesus have had to wage, and still have to, in order to rid the world of the blight of child-labor. Lord Shaftesbury, who set his hand to many a noble task, is immortalized in humane his- tory chiefly because of the service he performed in this regard. He stirred the world with reports which showed, among other things, how “little boys and girls five years old were put to dragging sledge-tubs by girdle and chain, on all fours, through roadways often no more than twenty-two or twenty-eight inches in height and full of mud and water, and exposed to all the miseries of cold, darkness, and foul atmosphere.’’® Urged on by his consecrated wife, who advised him to “go forward, and to victory,’ he kept up an in- cessant struggle until all the English-speaking world came to hear and to heed what he had to say. Judging by present reports, there is call for several new Shaftesburies in these United States. Here is hoping that some reader of these pages will be one! If you think the prevalence of child-labor in Amer- ica appalling, consider what it must be in all the world. The attempts for a Constitutional amendment against child-labor have been based upon the conviction that a Constitution that is not for the child is against it; for greed and poverty join hands in depriving multitudes *Reprinted from The Story of Social Christianity, by F. H. Stead, by permission of the publishers, George H. Doran Com- pany. 102 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK of children of adequate opportunities for schooling and for play, for health and proper development. Child- labor is an international problem, receiving considera- tion at present from the League of Nations and the In- ternational Association for Labor Legislation. Here is a problem that challenges all our minds and hearts. All that is Christian in us remembers what Mrs. Browning, though dead, yet reminds the world of: “They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see. For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. ‘How long,’ they say, ‘how long,’ O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world on a child’s heart,— Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath.” Childhood.—Yet no reform will permanently benefit the child until people arrive at a clear understanding of the meaning of childhood. The world has not yet caught up with Christ in its view of the child. Indeed, it is still a long distance from it. Jesus put the empha- sis upon the child. He set it in the midst. He realized its possibilities. He saw the advantages of childlike- ness. The church took the child to heart, but it forgot Christ’s emphasis. The child received a secondary place in its work. How small a place many churches still make for childhood in their programs! The world must be brought around to Jesus’ way of thinking in regard to the child. We shall never capture the world for Christ until we capture the child for him. “Take THE CHILD 103 heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.’’ One encouraging sign that many are taking heed is the growing enthusiasm about child-study. THE TASK THAT REMAINS The right of the child to be well-born.—This is a great day in which to live, if for no other reason than that this is the age of the child. We hope that our nation shall be a nation for the child. One way to insure this is to recognize the right of the child to be born of decent and healthy parents. The State should do all in its power to prevent the coming into this world of abnormal progeny. Many children are doomed by their heredity. They do not even get a fair start in life. The child has a right to be born with an adequate mental and emotional make-up. It is ours to protect that right, and to see to it that both public opinion and law shall take cognizance of it. The right of the child to a good environment.— Children used to be, and of right, still are being im- pressed with what they owe society. But the question should also be reversed. What does society owe the child? That is getting to be the question. It cer- tainly owes the child healthful nourishment and good surroundings, adequate housing, proper opportunity for play and work, favorable conditions for its well- being. In this regard great changes remain to be made. Those that need yet to be made may not come rapidly. But they cannot come too soon. There are still many parents who look upon their children as a financial asset, to be put to work just as soon as possible, so they may bring in money. Since much of a child’s environment lies in the home, good parents, who will exemplify toward their children the traits of divine parenthood, are essential. Public opinion and public 104 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK custom form part of the environment of the child, as does the nation. Any town that has no supervised playgrounds for its children owes childhood an apol- ogy. The newspapers are part of the child’s environ- ment. The amusement places are. These all must be made good company for the child. To them all Jesus is saying, “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that a single one of these little ones should be lost.” The right of the child to be well-trained.—The conspiracy of silence must be broken up. The child must be told the truth about life. It should receive an education adapted to its needs and its possibilities. Much in this direction has been accomplished, but much remains to be done. Here too we must first get understanding and then fit our methods to suit. The situation is forcibly illustrated in a recent report on the child at a great British Christian conference: “‘A’s child, mentally slow, may long for the cowboy’s or the woodman’s life, and is pushed (with difficulty) through a public school and university. B’s child is intellectually brilliant, reaches the seventh standard of a crowded city school at eleven years old, marks time there for three years and then begins his life-work as a railway van-boy. The sole reason for this difference is that A’s income is ten times as large as B’s.’’® Many a manufacturer would have been a teacher had his father not left him a mill, and many a teacher would have been a farmer had he been left land enough. People must be trained in that for which they are most fit, and vocational guidance should pre- vent them from drifting into a job where they make a mere livelihood, and make sure that they arrive at the task in which they can best make life count. *Christian Citizenship, Edward Shillito. Reprinted by permis- sion of Longmans, Green & Co., publishers. THE CHILD 105 The right of the child to be whole-souled.—Last, but not least, the child has a right to religion that fits its life. The fame of Robert Raikes, the father of the Sunday schools, has gone into all the earth because he launched the first systematic effort “to reach the poor and unschooled with a Christian training on a large scale.” But much of the religious training, prior to his day and since, has been designed to foist an adult religion ready-made upon children. We now understand that they must be helped to find God in their own way—their own way of thinking, feeling, acting—and aspiring. They must have first-hand expe- rience with beauty, goodness, truth, and usefulness. The graded lessons and the week-day systems of reli- gious education endeavor to approach this ideal. Re- searches have been and are being made into the reli- gious experience and significance of childhood. Much more awaits discovery. We must know childhood and Christianize it if we wish to do it justice. A child-centered civilization——As if there were not tasks enough implied in the foregoing, let this further word be said: No civilization can endure that does not put the child at its center. The medieval church had crusades by children. The modern church must crusade for children. When the world begins to compete and cooperate in child welfare, the child will be the great bond of unity between the nations. When the social order is examined in the light of whether it is conducive to the good of childhood, the social order will come right. Then it will be seen that as things are the child is led all too much to self-seek- ing, materialism, and secularity, and that things ought to be organized so as to be aids toward leading the child to a life of love and service. When the candor, loyalty, teachableness, and faith that characterize the 106 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK child are accepted as standards for life as Jesus ac- cepted them, international relations will be adjusted. Jesus made the child central in his teachings. This is one truth that rises clearly above the debris of theo- logical speculation concerning the teachings of Jesus. A Christ-centered civilization will have to be a child- centered one. There is an unmistakable lineage be- tween Christianity and “the tendency of the race to become childlike.” For Discussion 1. Illustrate the difference between child-labor and child work. In which way can we safely distinguish between these two? 2. If you had to divide a child’s time, what would you let it do? Would you divide it differently for one twelve years old and one aged six? 3. What is the truth in the saying, “Give me a child until it is seven and I do not care who gets it after that”? 4. What do you think of children’s sermons or Junior Church? How many societies in your church ask for the time and interest of children? Would one line of appeal be better than so many? 5. Can you think of any changes that might be made in our industrial order by which the welfare of child- hood might be advanced? 6. We have been speaking of the duty of parents to children. Enumerate some of the duties of children to their parents. SUGGESTED READINGS Versteeg, John M., The Deeper Meaning of Stewardship, Chap. XI. Wise, Stephen S., Child Versus Parent, Chap. II. Fuller, Raymond G., Child Labor and the Constitution, Chap. I. Richardson, Norman E., American Home Series. CHAPTER XI WOMAN HERACLITUS said, “Where women are honored, the divinities are complacent; where they are despised, it is useless to pray to God.” Christianity has accom- plished much for woman. Woman, in return, has ac- complished much for Christianity. She would have accomplished more, had she been given more of a chance. MAN’s INHUMANITY TO WOMAN A taste of the past.—Time was when “matri- archal” forms of society existed. In these, women were dominant and men played minor parts. But the “patriarchal” system came to prevail, and woman was brought under the domination of man. Her personal, social, political, and spiritual inferiority came to be taken for granted. The rabbis had a venerable saying: “Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts their tears.”’ Yet the rabbinical schools taught that the fall of man was to be traced to woman. Ju- daism did not account woman the equal of man. The Manu code of India reflected the opinion of well-nigh all the world: “Day and night must women be held in a state of dependence.’”’ Gautama Buddha, like Jesus, was considerate in his treatment of women. But, unlike Jesus, he considered woman a bar to the progress of man. “To make woman a stumbling- block to man in the journey toward his heart’s desire is to lower her condition and at the same time to keep 107 108 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK man down to a level at which the finest flowers of indi- vidual and social life can never grow. Gautama did not see this, and his system suffers to our own day from this defect.’ Confucius considered a wife far inferior to her husband, and taught that her primary duty is obedience to him. He, and his followers after him, considered woman merely as a means to an end. Among peoples such as the Hebrew the woman who was wife and mother held a relatively honored place, and among the Teutonic tribes she was held in even greater esteem. Yet always her place was secondary. The Stoics among the jurists accounted her inher- ently inferior and “uncertain”; and the Roman did not blush, in the making of his laws, to apply the term “imbecillitas’ frequently to her. Contempt, degradation, dependence, subordination, abuse—these are words that must figure largely in any accurate his- tory of womankind. “In bondage vile!?’—Prior to the coming of Jesus attempts had been made to ameliorate the condition of women in regard to such matters as inheritance and property rights. Some of them had met with success. As early as the first century B. c. the women of Rome had obtained the right to divorce their husbands upon certain grounds. Yet, on the whole, women had but little “proprietary and personal’ independence; “tu- tors’ had control not only over their property but over their lives; divorce in most cases was easily ob- tainable by the husband, but could not be secured upon any ground by the wife; political rights were denied her; in many places, like cattle, women were bought and sold. Nor should one suppose that these views and this *The Religions of Mankind, Edmund Soper. The Abingdon Press. WOMAN 109 treatment vanished from the earth with the coming of Jesus. They persisted for long. The blackest curse that has ever rested upon woman has come since the Christian era began. The lust and selfishness of Mo- hammed have blighted the lives of millions of women throughout these centuries. And in Christendom it- self the subjection of women continued. Not a little of it still persists. Laws have generally been against her. In some places, if a husband killed his wife, he was treated the same as if he had killed any other person; but if a wife killed her husband, it was deemed far more atrocious than the ordinary crime. For a man to beat his wife was considered nothing amiss. In an old book called The Woman's Lawyer, one quaint passage runs: “Justice Brooke affirmeth plainly that if a man beat an outlaw, a traitor, a pagan, his villein, or his wife, it is dispunishable, because by the Law Common these persons can have no action. God send gentlewomen better sport or better companie!’’? A historical document tells of “a bought wife deliv- ered in a halter” in September, 1782. Women have been yoked with beasts, pulling at the plow. Even Blackstone opined that “fa mother . . . is entitled to no power, but only to reverence.’* In England the public whipping of female offenders was not abolished until 1820. THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY Christ and woman.—lIn his labors of teaching and healing, Christ had much to do with women. There were women in the select circle of his intimates. And to the last he had his mother at heart. How could * Reprinted from Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, by permis- sion of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. * [bid. é 110 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Christ have been what he was, had not God given him a good mother? In all his dealing with women he showed his faith in them. Reverence rather than deference characterized his attitude. Certain gospel passages have been pressed into sery- ice to prove the contrary, but a fair reading of Jesus’ words will reveal that he always assumed their inher- ent equality. On occasion he also expressed it. He believed women capable of the same spiritual achieve- ments that are within reach of men. Mind could wish for no clearer proof of this than that record in Mark’s Gospel: “And there come his mother and his brethren; and standing without, they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren with- out seek thee. And he answereth them and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And _ looking round on them that sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” His high estimate of woman set women free. His view of them the church was slow, but sure, to follow. His insistence on the single standard of conduct— that there is not one code of ethics for women and an easier one for men, that men have no right to com- mit sins they will not condone in their sisters—made for purity of relations between the sexes and made home life, as we know and love it, possible. His ex- alted opinion of woman gave woman faith in herself. When he told Martha that Mary had “chosen the bet- ter part,” he dealt a death-blow to the notion that woman has business only in domestic pursuits. How many of them have found in him inspiration for fuller life! They became convinced that not sex but charac- WOMAN II! ter made one superior; that woman, so far from being a secondary being, has her rightful place as colaborer with Christ. And men came to view women in Jesus’ way until, as one writer put it years ago, “the preeminence of the Christian nations in Europe and of their descend- ants and colonists in every quarter of the globe, is most strikingly displayed in the equality and dignity which their institutions confer upon the female char- acter.”’* Wherever Christ has come in, woman has come up. Purity.—Into “that hard, pagan world’ came women who loved Christ and brought pure, cleansing life into the foul air of that day. It was their sense of holiness that wrought the miracle! Christian women became famed for their chastity. They gave up their lives rather than submit to the violation of their bodies. They “came clean.’”’ They exerted an incalculable influence for good on men. ‘What women these Christians have!” exclaimed Libanias when Anthusa brought her now famous son, Chrysos- tom, to him. In that early church adultery came to be loathed as worse than murder. Purity was ex- pected of all. The church and woman.—Paul was unable to rise quite to the height of Christ’s view. The opinions of his day had made their mark upon him. The cults he encountered saw but little good in woman. Men, then as since, thought themselves by nature superior. Paul could not cut himself loose from this sort of view. He fell behind his Master in regard to woman- hood. Yet, loath though he was to concede them equality either in society or the church, Paul believed “Reprinted from Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, by permis- sion of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. II2 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK unquestioningly in their spiritual equality. He was confident that in Christ “there is neither male nor female”; but only character counts. All things consid- ered, this was a long step for Paul to take. It shows that the spirit of Jesus does dispel prejudice. Woman and the church.—We are unable to tell precisely what place woman held in the early church. It is certain, however, that her part was considerable. This was so from the start. Woman figured prom- inently in the work Paul carried on. In those intimate personal touches appended to the Epistles of the New Testament apostolic greetings go to women as well as to men. Indeed, women are commended for the serv- ice they rendered the church. They prophesied, and even served as deacons in the church. This does not mean, however, that at that time they were full-time employees of the church, with acknowledged and regu- lar standing. Nor does it mean that they had much share in church management as such. These are re- cent developments; the admission of women to the highest representative or legislative bodies of the great denominations has come very recently. It does mean that, despite views of their inferiority that often and for long obtained, their spiritual status was admitted. It was conceded by all that they could enter into all the inner experiences of the Christian life. One cannot but be impressed with the anomaly of the church, holding for centuries that women were on an inferior social, economic, political, and ecclesiasti- cal plane, yet at the same time granting undisputedly their equal spiritual significance. What is noteworthy here is that the church admitted their equality in the highest respect. The teaching of the church prior to the Reforma- tion reflected these contradictory attitudes. Medieval WOMAN 113 mystical writers had a bad habit of picturing temptation in the form of woman, and the teaching and practice of celibacy assuredly were not calculated to increase the esteem for women. But these were more than off- set by the influence attached to the admiration and adoration of the mother of Jesus, which greatly inten- sified respect for womanhood. Women, furthermore, came to hold positions of honor and trust. They headed nunneries, hospitals, orphanages, and were thus recognized by the church. And chivalry, that ro- mantic and humane movement, served to elevate woman in a fashion unknown hitherto. Men’s efforts on behalf of women.—And always a deal of the spirit of Jesus mellowed the conduct of men. Christianity was all the while influencing the legislators in the work of establishing more tolerable conditions and the making of more equitable laws. Constantine limited divorce, prescribing the conditions under which alone it was to be obtained. Claudius was the first to attempt the removal of “tutelage” over women of full age; and Justinian, who prided himself on being the protector of women, set himself even more resolutely to wipe it out. Not everything was clear gain. Favorable legisla- tion made by one ruler was repudiated by another; “some were the laws of the Czsars and some of Christ,” but the cumulative effect was beneficent. Wherever Christianity spread, the marriage ties were strengthened. It came to be the proud epitaph over a man’s grave that he had been the husband of but one wife. Our word “wed” goes back to the Nordic pledge of monetary rights for the wife. Kings, when crowned, took an oath to be “the especial defender of widows and wards.”” Even women in serfdom eventu- ally came to better things. 114 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK In the thirteenth century Saint Louis built a house outside the walls of Paris for women “who, through poverty, had incurred the sin of wantonness.” In true Christlike spirit he named it “The House of the Daughters of God.’ There may have been earlier attempts to bless these unfortunates with another chance; there have been many since. Such names as Elizabeth Fry, Josephine Butler, and Catharine Booth come to mind at once when one thinks of woman’s hu- manity to woman. Incidentally, you will be a better woman, or a better man, if you take the time to read the story of these women, or of Florence Nightingale and her sisterhood of nursing, or of Susan B. Anthony and her labors for womanhood. But to return to the earlier day. The evidence is replete that Christianity, and the church that bore its name, steadfastly favored the higher and fuller life for woman. The church wrought mightily to abolish the abomination of tutelage; it threw its influence on the side of the “dower”; it revolutionized marriage by elevating it from the idea of a purchase to that of a voluntary union based on love; it advanced, by its teachings and laws, “the proprietary and personal” in- dependence of woman, and it made, and is making, not merely for equal, but for equitable treatment of her. THE MopERN MOVEMENT Political equality—The Reformation regained for the world a more wholesome view of family life and relations. This ultimately bore fruition in a move- ment outside the church, yet vitally affected by, and related to, Christianity. The final fight for social, legal, and political equity began with the French Revo- lution. In 1789 the National Assembly was petitioned by women of Paris for equal political rights. With WOMAN II5 the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women the year following, the mod- ern “Women’s Movement” got under way. Other in- fluences helped woman’s emancipation along. The growth of democracy and the development of modern industry each had a share. To-day, in most English-speaking lands and in much of Christendom, woman’s legal rights are on a par with those of man, while political equality, obtained in the United States in the year 1920, cannot be far away in many other lands. Yet the bulk of the womanhood of the world is still in all manner of bondage, and it is the task of Christianity to set it free. | In recent years and now.—You do well to mark this past century; these years since the spirit of Jesus and the scientific spirit have had freer course in the earth, for woman has come to her highest place in the past half century. That is so in the church; that is so in Christianity, for through the church women mis- sionaries are bringing life and light and leading to their unprivileged sisters in many non-Christian lands, thus influencing for the better the other religions that would never have turned a hand to help womanhood had Christianity not come. That is so in education, for while some belated folks still frown on higher edu- cation for women, woman, both in the home and the school, has a large part in molding the race to be. In the home, with increasing intelligence, she is creating, in miniature, that perfect state of affairs in which love shall be the order of each day. “Mutual contract.’—Sir Henry Maine has said that the most significant change comes when people shift from the basis of status to the basis of contract. This shift was never more swift than in the past few 116 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK years. Change always runs the risk of decay. There are sociologists who deplore that in all this change there has come a loss of honor for womanhood and a loss of social respect for them. Certain it is that there are antagonisms that have been, and are being, engendered, that we must man- age to get over. “Three tendencies,’ says Doctor Langdale, “‘are to be deprecated. One is the expecta- tion that the influence of woman’s power can displace woman’s power of influence. Another is the dis- position to set the sexes over against each other. Men and women differ physically, and still more psycholog- ically. They are complements, not competitors. The third is an overestimation of outside life. Not rarely some mother who, in rearing useful children, has ren- dered woman’s most valuable and courageous service to society, is heard to apologize that she has done noth- ing in life comparable to some woman of distinction in a profession. Society owes her an apology for anything that conceals the recognition that the home, based upon the love of one man for one woman, and their mutual care of children, is the finest and most fundamental institution of Christian civilization and that by it all other activities are to be judged.’”® We may count on Christianity to make the poet’s vision a growing reality: “The man to be more of woman; she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at the last she sets herself to man Like perfect music unto noble words.” *Citizenship and Moral Reform, The Abingdon Press. WOMAN 117 For DIscussIon 1. Is woman under greater obligation to Christ than man is? 2. What percentage of the womanhood of the race does not yet have equal rights and standing with men? 3. What moral gains have come from the extension of the franchise to women? 4. Should women be pastors of churches? 5. Which forms of Christian service can women render from which men are of necessity debarred? 6. How can young women best help young men to be Christian ? SUGGESTED READINGS Tuttle, Florence G., The Awakening of Woman. Bell, Raley H., Woman from Bondage to Freedom. Smith, George B., The Principles of Christian Living, Chap. XII. CHAPTER XII MANHOOD CHRISTIANITY faced a more difficult task with men than with women or children. Man was in the ascend- ency; the primary need in his case was not to set him free or to secure certain rights for him. It had to set him right. With man, generally speaking, the simple trust and democracy of childhood had been outgrown. Secondary to woman in emotional depth, the experi- ences of his workaday world (no less in this bustling age than in the days gone by) tended to heartlessness. For him, above all, Christianity had to effect an inner transformation. In the fine phrase of our fathers, it had to do “a work of grace in his heart.” And it had to do this for him, if ever childhood and womanhood were to “have free course and be glorified.” “DEEP IN THE HEARTS OF MEN” “The Manhood of the Master.”,—A serious gap remains in your reading until you peruse some such book as the one Doctor Fosdick wrote. For there, in the traits of the Master, you see the marks of a man. Such was the manhood he had that, almost instinctively, we capitalize the word when we write of him as Man. In his dealings with men he encountered many an un- manly trait. He saw pride, praying on street corners and sitting in the chief seats of the synagogues. He met men impure in thought and action, yet scorning those whose disgrace they helped to bring about. He met materialists of the most practical type. He en- 118 MANHOOD 119 countered smug opportunists, ready at any time to sell out to advantage. He came upon “bullies”? who loved to lord it over men. He knew how men could hate. And he knew how selfish they could be. He had seen greed grinding the faces and hearts of the poor. Yet, in the midst of all this, and without easy com- promise, he had a character that has been both the admiration and inspiration of men through the cen- turies, and will continue'as such. The greatest of men have had the habit of measuring themselves by him. It was said that when the Knights of King Arthur were inducted into the mystery of the Round Table, there rested upon each of them “a momentary likeness of the king.” So, men who entered into fellowship with Christ, came to reflect his character. Christ made manhood manly. Considerateness.— What were some of these traits which he pitted against the lower, and in favor of the higher life of man? Space does not permit considera- tion of all of them. But among them, surely, was con- siderateness. Probably none of Christ’s teachings has stood out more prominently than the one in which he urged people to be considerate one of another. The Golden Rule has become household speech in all Chris- tendom. Others, before and since his day, have doubt- lessly similarly perceived the need for considerateness. But when Jesus said it, the world was sure to hear. Slowly the Golden Rule has won the allegiance of men. Slowly but surely it is coming to be the measure for all humane relations. It should be noted that Jesus himself went beyond the demands of the Golden Rule. He was not simply as considerate of others as of him- self; he was more considerate of others. Himself “he spared not.” He freely forgave any wrong done him- self, but his indignation was kindled by wrongs done 120 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK to others. It was his considerateness that caused his indignation. And from his considerateness, his en- thusiasm for forgiveness came. Jesus showed that “the brave are tender.” They have a heart. The period of chivalry in the Middle Ages had its follies and conceits. But at the core it was Christian. Its considerateness of womanhood has been exalted in poetry and legend and song. But-it could not stop with that. It brought that vague but valorous standard: “The honor of a gentleman,” echoed by Shakespeare in Macbeth: “T dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.” Christian chivalry cannot stay confined to a single realm. It is bound to affect whatsoever it touches. A man cannot be considerate of childhood and be brutal. He cannot be considerate of womanhood and be im- pure. He cannot be considerate of his fellows and then seek his own rights regardless of theirs. So it comes that, in our day, Christian men bring consider- ateness to industry and commerce, to education and government. All barriers to brotherhood are being broken down by them. Purity.—The world into which Jesus came was grossly immoral. Back in his day Plato had lamented the lusts by which the people were killing off their souls. Virtually all the great Greek and Roman writ- ers reveal to what depths of debasement men and women had gone. There is as much truth as poetry in Matthew Arnold’s lines, descriptive of those times: “On that hard pagan world disgust And secret lothing fell; Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell.” MANHOOD 121 In sad and solemn words the Epistle to the Romans describes the havoc impurity was working among men. “And such were some of you,” Paul wrote the Corin- thians. “But,” he added, as a happy afterthought, “‘ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” Contact with Christ made men clean. Byron, in his wildest year, wrote in a letter to Tom Moore, “Virtue, as I begin to see, is the only thing that will do in this damned world.” It is the only thing that will do to save this world from being damned in body and in soul. Christianity, from the start, set itself like flint against impurity. “In condemning a Christian woman to the procurer, rather than to the lions,’ wrote Tertullian, “you admitted that a taint on our purity is considered something more terrible than any punishment or any death.” This love of purity has wrought an inestimable boon upon the race. All we account dear in friendship and in our home is to be traced to it. This Christian cleanliness stands like a Gibraltar against the ever-recurring inroads of dust. And more. It moves men to deep compassion for the victims of vice. Ignatius Loyola said ‘“‘he would willingly give his life to hinder a day’s sin of one of these unfortunates,’ and Robertson of Brighton observed that his “blood ran to liquid fire” in indigna- tion against those whose selfishness debased woman- hood. Christianity has always believed that the soul should be master of the body, and that to use any person merely as a means is the sin of sins. The world is indebted to Christianity for that conception of chas- tity which makes manhood safe for womanhood and fit to lead childhood on. If sometimes Christendom mistook prudery for purity, it was only because it knew so well that impurity is the most effective method 122 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK yet devised for spiritual suicide. Christianity has never let up in its fight on it. It never will. “A Man AFTER Gop’s Own HEART” Humility —Into the making of manhood humility has gone. ew things are more misunderstood. “Hu- mility,” said Mr. Ruskin, “‘is the first test of a truly great man.” “Blessed are the humble,” said Jesus, though the older versions obscured his saying by ren- dering his words, “Blessed are the meek.”’ But what is this humility that is a mark of manhood? The observations of Mr. Ruskin on this point will stand us in good stead. “I do not mean by humility doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opin- ions, but a right understanding of the relation between what he can do and say and the rest of the world’s doings and sayings. All great men not only know their business but usually know that they know it, and are not only right in their main opinions but they usually know that they are right in them, only they do not think much of themselves on that account. Arnolfo knows that he can build a good dome at Florence; Albert Durer writes calmly to one who has found fault with his work, ‘It cannot be done better’; Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else; only they do not expect their fellow men, therefore, to fall down and worship them. They have a curious undersense of powerlessness, feeling that the power is not in them but through them, that they could not do or be anything else than God made them, and they see something divine and God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful !””? *See The Manhood of the Master. MANHOOD 123 “He humbled himself,’ the record tells us about Jesus. Those who have shared his fellowship have followed him in this. They have put more stress upon the things they had in common with others than upon those others lacked. Thus they have been breaking down “the master-ethic”’; the notion that a few inher- ently have the right to dominate. In the spirit of their Master they have,.in the words of one of the greatest of all Christians, said to those whom they encountered, “Not that we lord it over your faith—no, we cooperate for your joy.” Sincerity.—And Jesus has helped men to be sincere. “Men,” said Machiavelli, “are a sorry breed; they are thankless, fickle, false, greedy of gain; devoted to you while you are able to confer benefits upon them.” We have all heard it said that every man has his price. And this belief is more often implied than it is uttered. Preacher or judge, peasant or king, it is all merely a matter of finding out how much a man will take to sell his convictions or throttle his conscience. But Jesus believed that men could be “of unpur- chaseable stuff.”” He knew the spiritual power that is available to help men to resist the temptations to sell their souls. His viewpoint has been justified. When we think of the martyrs who have gone to the stake rather than to surrender their convictions, when we remember those who have endured persecution for principle, we know that his ideal was no idle dream. Jesus always stood for sincerity. He refused to “walk delicately.”” He spoke right out to speak out right. It got him into trouble. It has gotten many a follower of his into trouble, but it has given us a world in which sincerity and truth are increasingly coming to be prized. Emerson rejoiced in any man who “taking both 124 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK reputation and life in his hand, will, with perfect ur- banity, dare the gibbet and the mob, by the absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his behavior.” “Blessed,” said Jesus, “are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake!’ Does it seem like the hard- est possible way to blessedness—this paying the price of sincerity in pain? Yet multitudes, following Jesus, have found no way more direct. “He’s TRUE To Gop WHo’s TRUE TO MAN” Service.—The word “servant” has often been re- marked upon. At first it was a title of disdain. No- body wanted to belong to the servant class. You might call men servants of God, provided it was under- stood that this did not therefore make them servants of men. It was the fashion to sign a letter ‘Your obedient servant,” but it was simply a fashion. Men did not expect to have that taken seriously. But to-day the word is coveted. It is a title of distinction. Men glory in it. They ask no greater boon than a chance to be of service. Religion once set out to make men servile, to give them that “slave-morality” that Nietzsche so despised. But things have come to a different pass. Religion now sets out to make men serviceable, so that they too may say, “I came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Jesus told his followers centuries ago, “I am among you as one that serveth.”’ He spoke with sparkling eyes of “the work which thou gavest me to do.” He was “obedient unto death.’ His was not simply “serv- ice where service is lost in delight.’’ It cost him much. Yet he was sure that life can only be filled full in pur- poseful living. He has lifted myriads of men out of the slough of petty and self-centered living into whole- MANHOOD 125 hearted effort to bring the realm of God to earth. The privilege of having their fellow men work for them has faded into insignificance alongside the privilege of working for their fellow men. Charles Wesley’s prayer has been theirs: “To serve the present age My calling to fulfill; O, may it all my powers engage To do my Master’s will.” They have Jesus to thank for this prayer! Love.—And the real reason why they have served men is that they have learned to love Christ. He has proved irresistibly attractive to them. They have treas- ured his words. They have “tried his works to do.” Their minds have been full of him. They have caught his spirit. They have made his cause their own, and have written his name on their hearts. They have come to know his Father. The lover of their souls has made them lovers of souls. Hence they have not been content simply to have in themselves these Chris- tian characteristics we have been thinking of. They have incorporated them in law, education, and custom, and great movements have found in them their inspira- tion and their strength. In the doing of all of this they have found abiding peace and increasing kinship to the Christ they loved. So they have said: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or per- secution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than con- querors through him that loved us. For we are per- suaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor _ things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 126 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” For Discussion 1. Look up the story of the founding of the Young Men’s Christian Association. 2. Does Christian manhood call for a strong sense of justice? What is a sense of justice? 3. Has money any relationship to manhood? If so, what kind? . 4. Read the “seven words’ of Jesus upon the cross. Which characteristics of manhood do you find in them? Which one was outstanding? 5. Are not the qualities that make true manhood exactly the same as those that make true womanhood? Do they need to differ? 6. How can young men best help young women to be Christian ? SUGGESTED READINGS Fosdick, Harry Emerson, The Manhood of the Master, Chap. I. Versteeg, John M., Christ and the Problems of Youth, Chap. ITT. Glover, T. R., Jesus in the Experience of Men, Chap. XI. ‘CHAPTER XIil THE FAMILY CHRISTIANITY has much at stake in the family. Until family life is Christianized the world cannot be- come Christian, for the family is the most important of human institutions. It is the cradle of our civiliza- tion. Christianity has done much for it. It has made for its purity, permanence, and power. Christians therefore are deeply concerned that it shall be both maintained and improved. THE INFLUENCE OF CHRIST Monogamy.— Lucretius, deep-dyed materialist though he was, dated “the first true refinement” of the human race from “chaste single marriage.” All sorts of experiments have been made in human his- tory. Promiscuity, polygamy, polyandry, and the like, have all had their chance at the race. As the race has come up these all have gone down. They have been weighed in the balance and found wanting in civiliz- ing power. ‘This, and not the behest of priest or po- tentate, explains why the race has resorted, and increas- ingly is resorting, to monogamy. It is humanity’s highest spiritual attainment in the relation of the sexes and in the relation of the sexes to society. The peo- ples among whom it has prevailed have come to the front in the world. Both material and spiritual lead- ership have fallen into their hands. Christ and monogamy.—Divorce is by no means a modern problem. Long before Jesus came the Jewish 127 128 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK rabbis had been struggling with it. A century before Christ’s birth the president of the synagogue had pro- mulgated the ‘‘Kethuboth,” or “law of the marriage deed,” in the hope that thus divorce might be brought to a halt. But there was no stopping it. It continued a problem to Jesus’ day. And in our day it is still a question of large dimensions. If you are at all familiar with the New Testament, you will know that in his discourses Jesus generally confined himself to the unfolding of principles. But he went out of his way to speak a good word for the sanctity of the marriage ties. He stood up for their permanence. Unfortunately, the gospel records of his utterances concerning divorce permit of some debate; but all who have read them are agreed that they were intended to assert the integrity of marriage. He quoted with approval a passage from the book of Genesis, ascribing monogamy to the will of God. He perceived that it was not enough for marriage to be legal; he in- sisted that it ought to be spiritual as well. His attitude and words have gone far toward bringing monogamy to its best. Christ and the family.—Jesus seems to have thought of the family as a sort of replica of the spiritual order of things. He referred to God as a Parent and spoke of himself as God’s Son. And he missed no oppor- tunity to stress the significance of the child. He went so far as to say that the child ought to come first in all our considerations. That was an unheard-of thing to do in his day. He put the child in the midst of men’s minds. His deep respect for woman made the Christian family possible. His ennobling influence made of fathers men who had both his mind and his spirit. Nothing on earth is more sublime than the Christian THE FAMILY 129 home. Here people are not simply ushered into the world, but they are introduced to those social and spiritual values that make life glorious. Here love comes to its best in considerateness and service. Here affection tempers authority and democracy gets its chance. Here, without outside interference, an em- bryo realm of God is built. Here it is no strain to be religious—it would be a strain not to be! Whoever has known a Christian home will wish that all homes might be Christian. THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH The church and the family.—‘“The Cotter’s Satur- day Night,” written by Robert Burns, is the classic illustration of the grace of a Christian home. This grace has often been commented upon in other realms than that of literature. All the more surprising, therefore, that the church should not always have recognized this. Yet the early and the medieval church worked the home great injury. Some of this, to be sure, was inevitable. Christianity nat- urally caused a deal of domestic disturbance. Docu- ments coming down from the early church tell of chil- dren who left their parents, wives who forsook their husbands, sons whom fathers disowned, daughters whom parents cast out, and many a wife divorced, all because the Christian faith had been embraced. But most of the injury was caused by unchristian ideas. Among the pagan conceptions that soon obtained a strong hold on the church was belief that the body is corrupt and that the soul’s safety lies in suppressing all of its desires. Hence marriage was looked at askance and celibacy was exalted. It was thought that people could not hope for perfection at home; if they cared supremely for their souls, they were to tear 130 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK themselves away from it. In order to place the priests more completely at the service of the church Gregory VII imposed celibacy upon them. But, as if to offset this, the church, for centuries, prohibited the separa- tion of husband and wife for any cause. The church of to-day does well to try to make up for the mistakes the church has made in the past. Tak- ing its clue from Jesus, it is teaching that the family ranks high in the purpose of God. The church is en- gaged in a struggle, not, as some seem to think, to keep the family what it is, but to make it all it ought to be. The forces opposing family life—Many things to- day threaten to disrupt the home. To-day, as always, attacks are being made upon it by those who labor for its destruction. Every so often some novelist or dramatist will inform you, in words tremulous with the sense of discovery, that it is high time that the sanctions of marriage be destroyed, and that we put in their place the scheme which he champions. It is always sobering go remember, with all this ado, that nothing new is proposed. It has all been tried out! That is why these attacks are not likely to have much force. We are not going back to the jungle, and the race is not inclined to go back on its gains. Changes in family life will doubtless come in the future, as they have in the past! We may count on the spirit of Christ to see to it that whatever changes come will be for the better spiritually. THE PRESENT PROBLEMS A different family life.—But there are more subtle dangers than open attacks upon it. Regard what changed conditions meet the family in this land. For these industrialism is chiefly responsible. A century ago the average home was also the center of employ- THE FAMILY I3I ment. If a man had anything to make, he made it at home. Large factories could not have existed with- out rapid means of locomotion for the distribution and disposal of their products. A large family was an economic asset. If there were more mouths to feed, there were also more hands to toil. Economic pro- duction centered in the household. Everybody worked with father! There was real incentive to work in the knowledge that the whole family reaped its benefits. To-day members of the same family work at entirely different things. The occupational interests are often widely diverse. The unity of interest, economic at least, is shattered in most homes. The elimination of economic interests from the home removed one factor that contributed much toward its permanency. One of the blackest sins of our social order is that so many people have been forced by it into conditions of toil that tend to destroy home life. The housing problem also enters in. Large populations herded together in congested quarters makes neither for decency nor for family permanency. New views.—The life of the family is also threat- ened by changed conceptions. Servile obedience to parental commands is going out of fashion. Women no longer feel that the home is the only realm in which they ought to be at home. Many men develop so many outside interests that they devote to the home neither time nor thought enough to make a go of it. Worse still, few people have deeply pondered its significance. The family was the mold in which Jesus cast his con- ception of the kingdom of God. To help people to realize why Jesus thought in such high terms of it is to render a signal piece of Christian service. Divorce.—If for the next fifty years the divorce rate gains on the marriage rate as it has for the past 132 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK twenty, disaster is inevitable. Not even uniform di- vorce laws, good as they may be in themselves, will do to stem the tide. We shall have to determine the causes and begin to work on them. There is abundant evidence that many are permitted to marry who are emotionally insane and inherently deficient. We shall have to put a stop to that if we wish to survive. Much friction comes from the financial as well as the nervous strain of too large families, and from kin- dred difficulties. These will have to be frankly faced, and faced in the spirit of Jesus. Many young people marry who have ideas and ideals concerning matri- mony that are totally remiss. To correct these is a task to which Christians must give themselves. They must be made to see that marriage is not just a scheme to make two people happy; it has soctal significance. Not the wife or the husband but the child and society must primarily be considered. The church must help people to see that a common moral purpose must aug- ment personal attraction if marriage is to hold good. The best antidote to divorce is a clean and clear view of marriage. Religion in the home.—One product of “foreign missions” is the remaking of the world’s homes. In this respect the church’s work is showing some star- tlingly splendid results. But, unless Christian nations Christianize their family life, “the nations that sit in darkness” will fail to see the “great light.” Fitzgerald once asked Tennyson, as they were looking at a picture of Goethe, “What is wanting in his face?” And Tenny- son replied, “The divine’! It is this that is wanting in too many families. A home in which God is at home—that is the Christian ideal. Hence the friendly discussion of religion and whole-souled family worship will go far toward providing the environment in which THE FAMILY 133 “the great Triad—Father, Mother, Child’ can come to its best. Regard what Christ has done toward lifting human life. He touched the cradle and made childhood sa- cred; he hallowed womanhood and brought it to freedom and newness of life; he put his seal on men and manhood became sublime. He set the family “in the paths of peace,” and made family life “a thing of beauty and a joy forever.” For DISCUSSION 1. Do you think that school, club, and church life inter- fere with the success of the home? 2. Does it make much difference what sort of houses families ive in? Do better houses always mean better homes? If not, why should we still be con- cerned about proper housing ? 3. How can young people contribute toward making home life noble? 4. Is the old commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother” still binding on us? How can we honor dishonorable parents? 5. What do you think of the family altar? Of family worship? How would you like to see the latter conducted? 6. If your family is not Christian, what can you do to Christianize it? SUGGESTED READINGS Hodgkin, Henry T., The Christian Revolution, Chap. VI. Langdale, John W., Citizenship and Moral Reform, Chap. IV. Shillito, Edward, Christian Citizenship, Chap. VI. cer ne hati gee es aan eee | ’ Mies ah EO MEER pucabiniet i hee en ae G4 iret’ fei is bh eta ataes, tasty Wy i UP & auf ohinaater aC yt i$ a bay Abit, 2), RAEN hte sui chet meee yh: itty Py yr My it fiteny aA wide ore aiid ani gd ay owner A es ) WG OH yen Laasiyy reyes re wns remoleeg aah, i Aes nie ie ey ait ‘Gat ne “git rea hing ah «4 +, oy , ae | | mI ¥ ; ive meray ts hor 4 ute " 2 ith, 4 r Vb iy yy ath vy * mt ay Us ie We sae, F td . ‘ PART IV. CHRISTIANITY AT WORK ON LIVING CONDITIONS Ye that have faith to look with fearless eyes Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife, And know that out of death and night shall rise The dawn of ampler life: Rejoice, whatever anguish rend the heart, That God has given you the priceless dower To live in these great times and have your part In Freedom’s crowning hour, That ye may tell your sons who see the light High in the heavens—their heritage to take— “IT saw the powers of darkness take their flight; I saw the morning break.” —Found on the body of an Australian soldier. * Reprinted from The World’s Great Religious Poetry, Caroline M. Hill, The Macmillan Company, publishers. Reprinted by per- mission. , y oe : en aie ee 5 My } re | he Ne; AG ft rs , vA Ks f | ba s j 3 hz ; wie hea rf % Waser, ‘ 4) i ide ‘ , . rae . ‘ } pe rr | | By WA a 8 ahaa T Rantala MIRC) a Tes if wy wd G4) : ee) ie * Ys 4 age " i sa ‘ a as + tI : f L i y Ny A : CHAPTER XIV POVERTY JoHN BricuHt’s young wife had passed away. Cob- den called to see him. After some words of condo- lence, he said to Bright: “There are thousands of homes in England at this moment where wives, moth- ers, and children are dying of hunger.” Then and there, Bright and Cobden resolved to unite their ef- forts to better the conditions of the poor. THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY Hearing our call.—The call that comes to us is not that of a single nation, but of all mankind. We live in a favored land; only five or six millions of us are compelled to live on or below the starvation level! This is a small ratio compared to the rest of the world. The stark specter of starvation has always haunted the multitudes. It still does! It is an open and se- rious question whether the majority of the people now on earth ever really know what it means to have their hunger satisfied. Christianity came as good news to the poor. “It is alien to our character,’ said Constantine, “to allow anyone to perish of famine,” and so he sought to give systematic relief to the poor. But the text suggesting these words was not worked very hard. Another text was. Indeed, this one was overworked. It made his- tory—worse than it should have been: “Ye have the poor with you always.” The word “always” in this text was offered in proof that Christ recognized and 137 138 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK accepted poverty as an inevitable part of the divine scheme. To-day the attempt to wrest this meaning from this text is being abandoned. We are more in- clined to pick out another word for emphasis. We would let the word “ye” stand out: “Ye have the poor with you always.” We prefer to make it refer to folks who are so blighting in sympathy and soul that who- ever and whatever comes into their vicinity is forth- with impoverished. | Getting the meaning straight.—‘Poverty,”’ said the late Canon Barnett, “is not, as the survival of medieval teaching seems to suggest, a source of bless- ing. Conditions have changed. The want of money did not hinder Saint Francis and his followers from making friends with the flowers and the birds, from enjoying natural beauty, and from having leisure and silence; or, in the society of their fellows, of learning the best of what men knew. Poverty cut them off from the deceitfulness of riches, but was not so press- ing as hourly to add to ‘the cares of life.’ The poor in pocket could then claim the blessings of the poor in spirit. But poverty to-day has far different effects. If it is still very hard for a rich man to see the way into the kingdom of heaven, it is almost impossible for a poor man to enjoy the fullness of life.”* Let us re- member that poverty, like many another word, is used with varying meanings. The poverty Jesus advocated meant “‘the lack of nothing”’ essential to wholesome life. Does poverty bring blessings?—‘Poverty,” said Mohammed, in his holier days, “is my glory.” The Fakirs and Dervishes of Mohammedanism are under the vow of poverty. So are the Brahman mendicants, Saint Francis thought “poverty the way of salvation, _* Edward Shillito, Christian Citizenship. Reprinted by permis- sion of Longmans, Green & Co., publishers. POVERTY 139 the nurse of humility, and the root of perfection.” One of the fundamental rules of the Franciscans and Do- minicans was that their members must possess no property but be wholly dependent on alms. Various Popes later relaxed the strictness of this; some monas- teries and convents became very rich. You must al- ways distinguish between this voluntary poverty and the poverty by which the lives of multitudes has been crushed. The former was chosen by a few; the latter was forced upon the many. The blessings of poverty are often recited. If with “poverty” you mean the absence of wealth, the frugal existence where character, not cash, is the coin of the realm, we can all agree. The “honest poverty” im- mortalized by Robert Burns is cause for just pride: “What though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin grey, an’ a’ that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A Man’s a Man for a’ that: “Pora that,.an'.a that, Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that; The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor, Is King o’ men for a’ that.” This is fine poetry, but it should never be used to throw dust in the eyes of people who ought to see this issue as it is. It is not a disgrace to be poor, but it is an injustice to be so poor that one cannot hope for full- ness of life for oneself or one’s family. The church faces poverty.—The world into which Christianity came knew bitter want. The book of Acts and the Epistles in the New Testament reveal the con- cern the first Christians had for the poor in their midst. Their methods apparently left much to be de- sired, but their spirit was that of the Master. His 140 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK pronounced intention to bring good news to the poor had not been wasted on them. The attempts of governments to alleviate poverty are of recent origin, as are the vastly organized char- ities of our day. During long periods the church was the only organization to practice charity. It had not thought to check up its methods or to measure and watch its results. But it early learned to systematize its work. The Franciscans even established lending houses, where loans were advanced with little or no interest to people who would otherwise have been vic- timized by unscrupulous usurers. Charity.—Christianity responded to poverty with charity. It accounted almsgiving an outstanding vir- tue. The early leaders went upon the theory that the poor had the first claim upon the church. One of the most famous of them, Chrysostom, at one time sup- ported seven thousand from church funds. There was nothing niggardly in their treatment of the poor. One did not have to be a Christian to get aid. We have it on the witness of the Emperor Julian that heathens as well as the faithful received alms from the church. The church was liberal in its liberality. The early church, moreover, kept the motives for almsgiving pure. Love for one’s fellow men was the chief in- centive. Merit.—But Tertullian and others began to teach differently. They said that almsgiving brought spir- itual gain to the giver, in the sense that it was a work of merit, by which one advanced the interest of one’s own soul. It counted to one’s credit on the ledger of God. Charity thus became selfish; alms came to be an investment, not in the poor, but for one’s own safety in the life to come. In similar or altered fashion this theory exists otherwhere. “Remove the beggars!” ex- POVERTY : 14] claimed the Buddhist abbot, when someone asked him why the church did not care for these sufferers. ‘That would never do. Kwannon [the goddess of mercy | would be angry. ‘How could we worship her accept- ably if there were no beggars to whom to give alms?’’* It was not easy, even after the Reformation, to get rid of this theory. Jeremy Taylor, in his classic de- votional book, Holy Living, which exerted a wide in- fluence on religious thinking, took up the cudgels against it. He insisted that the giver ought to acquire “a true sense of the calamity of his brother,” and that “those in want” should receive “in proportion to their need.” But William Law, in his Serious Call, a book which had a large place in the spiritual history of John Wesley, contradicted him. Slowly but surely the church has veered around to Taylor’s viewpoint. The whole business of charity is now regarded from the viewpoint of the recipient. For charity has hurt many it was intended to help. Investigations have demon- strated that indiscriminate charity makes for pauper- ism. We do not always lend a hand with a “hand- out.’”’ It has come to be the business of experts to see that our gifts shall help and not hinder those they are meant to bless. They are making clear to us that the best charity we can give is work. THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM The charity of Christians.—Followers of Jesus could not remain on speaking terms with their con- sciences if they failed to do what they could do to les- sen the misery to which poverty subjects many. Hence almost every church has its “fund for the needy.” Hence church people, in large numbers, support and *See The Religions of Mankind, Edmund D. Soper. The Abingdon Press. 142 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK direct charities. Make all the allowance you can for those who engage in charity without professing Chris- tianity. It would then still be true that the bulk of the aid extended to the poor comes from those who are Christian in character and, so, in ideals. Like Alfred Toynbee they see the poor “in the presence of God... . as heirs of immortality.” The relief of poverty——Christians do well to fa- miliarize themselves with any attempts that have been, or are being made, to relieve or to remedy poverty. Those who have the interest of the poor at heart ought to understand at least the general proposals of Com- munism and Socialism, which has been called the prod- igal son of Christianity. They should be conversant with such recent attempts to relieve the poor as widows’ pensions, health insurance, old-age pensions, and na- tional efforts to “stabilize” employment. They should see to it that no housing system is permitted which does not give major thought to the future generation, and guarantee those decencies and advantages without which no house can hope to be a home. It used to be a sign of piety to say that the way to take a man out of the slums was to take the slums out of the man. There is something in that. But of late it is being re- garded at least as pious to get rid of the slum itself. The battle against the slums is a vital contribution toward the family problem, and all Christians ought to take an eager interest in “town-planning” or other schemes for the better housing of the poor. Getting down to bed-rock.—The conviction is growing, however, that most of these efforts evade rather than correct the problem of poverty. We must come to grips with it at its source. Poverty used to be attributed quite generally to laziness and intemper- ance. But the evidence is preponderant that poverty POVERTY 143 is not, in the main, the outcome of personal character- istics. Sickness, the death of the bread-winner, old age, unemployment, casual employment—these are some of the factors that enter in. A far deeper cause is that “five out of every six children are born to no assured place in our industrial system.” The chief difficulty lies in those methods of living we usually designate as the social order. These must be Chris- tianized if poverty is to go. What Christianity has to say about poverty.— And go it must! Few things are clearer in the teach- ings of Christ than that it is the will of God that life shall be made full. Can you think of better news to the poor than that there is no spiritual justification for the existence of poverty? Anything that crushes life must go; only that which lifts life may remain. It is ours, then, not simply to relieve poverty, but to abolish it. But how shall we go about it? First, by straight thinking. To remedy “those derangements of the business world which bring as their consequences poy- erty and the need of its relief’ we must recognize that the trouble roots “in the larger problem of the indus- trial order, and the most unquestionable and effective philanthropy is to be found in industrial justice, prog- ress, and peace.’”’ Poverty will be destroyed when not only the individual but also the social order are Chris- tianized. In the next place, it will take heroic effort. The best brains and the ripest experience ought to be brought to this task. Depend upon it—the moment you attack entrenched greed you will have a stiff fight on your hands. Men and women must be found who have the courage to challenge poverty rather than to com- promise with it. There is one star by which they may 144 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK safely go. It is this: the will of God is practicable. It can be worked. If it is the will of God that life shall be, not impoverished, but enriched, then it is ours to find the way out of poverty. For a way out there must be! For Discussion 1. It would be interesting if a member of the class would report what is the average income of an American family of five, and what is considered a “‘living standard,’ an adequate income in your community for a decent living. 2. When Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,’ was he referring to poverty or the means of living? Is there any connection between the two? 3. What was the truth in the merit theory of charity? 4. Estimate the amount of poverty in the world. How does poverty effect the spiritual status of a nation? Do abjectly poor peoples make for freedom and democracy ? 5. Would you call it evangelism when missionaries and others train people in famine-stricken areas in the use of modern implements? Does poverty aid reli- gion? Is it a contribution to missionary advance? 6. In which sense is it good for one to be poor? When does the “blessing” of poverty prove to be a curse? SUGGESTED READINGS Ward, Harry F., Poverty and Wealth, Chap. X. Langdale, J. W., Citizenship and Moral Reform, Chap. V. Versteeg, John M., The Deeper Meaning of Stewardship, Chap. VII. “CHAPTER XV EDUCATION “JERUSALEM was destroyed,’ so said the rabbis, “because the instruction of the young was neglected.” Jesus had other reasons than this historic one for wish- ing to bring the light of knowledge to human lives. He considered it to be the will of God that every hu- man being should progress. Folks cannot sit up with such an idea as this for many centuries without some- thing happening. What happened was this: ignorance died and education grew. It took a long time, to be sure, but that it should happen at last was inevitable. Had not the Master said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’? IGNORANCE Illiteracy. — “There was a wight who such a scholar was That he the letters in a book could read.” That ability to read should ever have been cause for comment seems strange to us. Yet not until public- school systems became prevalent did the majority of people, even in Christian lands, learn how to read and write, or form even a bowing acquaintance with arith- metic. By the time Christ came to earth Greek thought had for some time been traveling over the Roman highways, but it never traveled far enough to reach the mass of men. Slaves who could read or recite were at a premium, but ability to read and write was not a requisite for citizenship. Charlemagne in 145 146 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK 800 was crowned emperor of all Romans, yet all he was able to do was to sign his name! In this he sur- passed his contemporaries. [Illiteracy has all through the years barred the way of progress. It has come down to our times. When our country was drafting young men for the World War the examinations re- vealed an unsuspected ratio of illiteracy. It is esti- mated that, throughout the world, only about one out of every three inhabitants is able to read and write. Signs are not wanting, however, that this proportion will speedily be changed. The work of the missionaries and the contact of belated nations with the Western world will have this result. The world threatens to become literate. When all read, many will think, For many of us, just now, the danger exists that we shall sub- stitute reading for thinking. As the old-time mystic put it, “It is only as we think well that we serve God in the inner court.” RELIGIOUS EDUCATION The church and the school.—Jesus himself has justly been called the Master Teacher. His was a na- tion that for long had set great store by teaching. The honored name in Judaism was “rabbi,” which means “teacher.” Many master minds, of whom Paul was the first, were attracted to Jesus. Some of these ex- hibited rare intellectual prowess. With people like these about there was nothing to do but to stress edu- cation. It was most timely that this was done. Decay was at the vitals of the Greek and Roman cultures. Christian education won the day for mankind. Out of its humble beginnings present-day education has come. It is difficult to overestimate the service the church rendered during the first four centuries of the Christian era. EDUCATION: 147 Unfortunately, the enthusiasm for education waned. To be sure, an occasional church council still spoke out for it: “Let the priests . . . hold schools in order that all the children intrusted to them, can receive the first notion of letters.”? But the practice fell into disuse. Where it continued, it reached but a few. Only the privileged secured some education. The masses re- mained untouched. The monasteries serve.—“Christianity,” said Mr. Chesterton, “was the one path across the Dark Ages that was not dark.” Had he said, “Not totally dark,” he would have come nearer the facts. In brutal and ignorant days learning was sheltered and slightly pro- moted in convents and monasteries. Manuscripts, in- cluding those of the classics, were laboriously copied and bound by their occupants. This work, which meant so much to succeeding ages, brought them neither fame nor gain. A deep consecration kept them at their tasks. They were comforted with such coun- sel as that of Thomas a Kempis: “Do not trouble your- self at the fatigue of your work, for God, who is the source of every good and just labor, will give the re- ward; . . . and as he who gives a glass of cold water does not lose his reward, so he who gives forth the living water of wisdom will receive more surely his recompense in heaven.” Popular education owes much to a French Christian, Jean Baptiste de La Salle, whose fraternities, The Ignorantines, were pledged to instruct free of charge the children of the poor. Back in the twelfth century the first university, that of Paris, developed from a cathedral school, and from that, in * Reprinted from Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, by permis- sion of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. * Ibid. 148 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK turn, Oxford University came. Higher education came by way of the church. MAKING EDUCATION RELIGIOUS The public-school system.—Robert Raikes and his friends strove to secure national systems of education. For their pains they were showered with calumny and hate. It is too much to expect that there should have been no opposition to the public-school idea here. In 1671, Governor Berkeley said: “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!” It is a far cry from this to the words of Washington in his Fare- well Address: “Promote them as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.” The principle of free public education was not assured until about the middle of the nine- teenth century. To our country goes the credit for establishing tax-supported nonsectarian schools, to pro- mote the common good and to “serve as the instrument of democracy.”’ The welfare of a republic depends, in large part, upon the education of its citizens. The nations that have believed, with Christ, that all should have fullness of life, have come to be the leaders of the world. , The public school and the church.—Protestants hold tenaciously to the principle of the public school. They deem it a grievous mistake to segregate chil- dren according to the religion of their parents. They believe that such a procedure jeopardizes democracy. They consider it inconsistent that members of a democ- racy should be trained in the schools of a hierarchy. EDUCATION 149 They believe that church and state should be kept sep- arate. They believe, just as ardently, that church and state should never be separated! Cooperation rather than coordination is the need. These two must work hand in glove. Religion was taken out of the school in the name of religious liberty. Religion is now getting back into the school in the name of religious justice. For, as someone has said, the soul of education is the education of the soul. Education in the public schools is coming to be a sort of epitome of life. Religion is easily discredited in the minds of the children if the school makes no place for it. As the school concerns itself with an increasing proportion of the interests of young life, it cannot consistently keep out that which is most vital of all. Hence there has come the move- ment for “week-day religious education,” which finds further impetus in the fact that the provisions for reli- gious education now made in the church schools are not commensurate with the importance of the matter. EXPANDING EDUCATION “They that sit in darkness.’—And yet, it is still, as Mr. H. G. Wells has said, “a race between education and catastrophe” in this world. For multitudes as yet lead benighted lives. They must have light and lead- ing, or there is no hope for the world. It is well-known to-day that wherever missionaries go, there the schools come. Besides, the Bible has been translated into seven hundred and seventy languages and dialects. Yet of the bulk of the population of the world it must still be confessed that their ignorance is deep- seated. Consider their ignorance of physical well-being. Millions know little or nothing of hygiene or sanita- tion; if they did, they would lack the means to make 150 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK these effective. There are whole sections with large populations where a competent physician is as rare as a billionaire. But why go this far afield? Are there not all about you folks to whom a toothbrush is still a novelty and to whom an honest bath would be the event of a lifetime? Rest assured of this: unless we build better bodies and secure superior minds by the million on this earth, the dream that Jesus dreamed until he was driven to a cross cannot come true. Do you wonder that Christians devoutly say at holy com- munion time: “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ ... preserve thy soul and body unto... life’? And the church is the body of Christ. Where Jesus has come, clean blood has come! Consider ignorance of the means of livelihood. Mul- titudes all over the world can scarcely eke out an ex- istence, yet they work hard and long; they do not know, or do not know how to utilize, modern implements; they have little leisure, little recreation, and most of that none too good; the doors that lead to life are sel- dom opened to them. Jesus’ way of living has in- variably led to a better way of making a living. Spaciousness of mind.—How few of them are able to think in world-terms! Indeed, not many of them think in nation-wide terms. They live in isolation, with means of communication and transportation few. One of the finest fruits—if not the very finest—of Christianity is cosmic interpretation; in other words, thinking in terms of universal factors and facts. Jesus was always troubled about men’s failure thus to think. He complained to his disciples, “You do not think like God.” The percentage of those who think this way is exceedingly small. Yet they exert an influence far in excess of their numbers. No wonder, for they think God’s thoughts after him! EDUCATION 151 One might thus enumerate item by item the knowl- edge people lack. But a deeper fact remains to be noted. We must not mistake knowledge for intellect, things known with. the capacity for knowing. And intelligence—the power of association and discrim- ination between facts—is a still higher state than in- tellect. When we have replaced ignorance with knowl- edge we are still unprofitable servants unless, “with all our getting, we get wisdom.” Here is the most vital problem of all! “Saint Simon on a pillar all the day, thinking of God and man: a curious way to spend one’s life, we say. But what of men who spend their lives in trying to get as much for as little as they can? That is, it seems to me, more tragic than being a saint against the sky.”* A life such as here portrayed is, in the truest sense, a life ignorant of life. It is spiritual ignorance that must be dispelled. Goethe hinted this same truth when he said that the object of education ought to be the forma- tion of tastes rather than the communication of knowledge. A Victorious CHRISTIANITY The power of Christ.—Christianity is an old hand at this business. It has always brought men “out of the darkness into the marvelous light.’”’ It came “‘to bring life . . . to light.” Right nobly has it done so. Christianity has been mighty to the casting down of ignorance in all of its phases. And it continues so. Let us bear in mind what Silvester Horne wrote a generation ago: “It does us good at times to sit and ponder how slowly, but how surely, Christ has edu- cated conscience and revealed his mind and will to this * Alexander Meiklejohn, Freedom and the College. Reprinted by permission of The Century Company. 152 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK world; the thought is profoundly impressive. Slavery is condoned and defended by Christian people so long; but when the final impeachment is made, and the last blow is struck, it is the Christian who leads. When any institution is once fairly and decisively condemned by the Christian conscience, I will not give you many years’ purchase for it, though it may stand intrenched in centuries of privilege and vested rights. It may spread itself as a green bay tree, but it will soon be cut down when the ax of Christian conviction is laid to its roots. That is very suggestive of the power of Christ. And yet—this culture of saints! Is it not the greatest evidence of all of Christ’s authority, and his _ authority in every age and every land? I want to see the philosophy, or science, or cult, or religion that can do such marvels and make such men. The fact is, we have seen and known what Christ Jesus can do and does do; and, as has been well said, ‘until we find his fellow,’ he is deserving of loyalty, and trust, and praise with- out end.” For Discussion 1. Do working conditions and living conditions the world over make for ignorance? Can the right kind of labor educate? Which kind? How? (Let some member of the class bring in and read Edwin Mark- ham’s “The Man with the Hoe.’’) 2. What is the meaning of the word “disciples”? Should Christianity make men teachable? Should it nor- mally create within them a desire to be taught? 3. It has been said that education is a matter for the entire man. What do you think is the meaning of this statement ? 4. State the difference between religious education and education that is religious. Do we need both? 5. Should there be colleges under church auspices as well EDUCATION 153 as State-supported institutions of higher learning? What is the difference between them? 6. Are most of the people in the United States spiritually ignorant? If so, how can this be remedied? SUGGESTED READINGS Foakes-Jackson, F. J., Studies in the Life of the Early Church, Chap. X. Betts, George H., The New Program of Religious Educa- tion. Snowden, James H., The Meaning of Education. CHAPTER XVI LABOR Tuts book began by saying that, whatever else Christianity is, it is certainly work. The other side of this truth must be dealt with now. Work itself is religious. It must be interpreted in terms of the spir- itual. And it must be honored as such. This view is not distinctive with Christianity. “The gods,” we read in Xenophon, “sell us all good things for the price of our labor.” Yet labor is a vital part of the Chris- tian faith. You would cut the heart out of Chris- tianity if you did away with it. The old monks knew this when they adopted the slogan, Laborare est orare —‘Work is worship.” THrE MEANING OF LABOR The pagan view of work.—Aristotle divided occupa- tions into honorable and ignoble. But how strange a division he made! Only those engaged in philosophy or politics were at honorable labor; not only the man- ual workers, but the merchants and professional men also, had ignoble occupations! There are people to-day whose view of work is even less accurate. We have with us intellectual aristocrats who look down upon the working classes with a sneer upon their faces. There are those who regard “‘com- mon” labor as uniformly or inherently inferior. And there are always those who have no use for labor of any sort. They think they are compelled to work “in the sweat of their brow” because something, sometime, went wrong with human affairs. Some of them seize 154 LABOR 155 upon one of the Genesis stories in support of their pessimism. Even so great a poet as Browning, in one of the finest of all his productions, speaks of ‘“‘the vul- gar mass called work.’ One Sunday afternoon, years ago, the president of Harvard University addressed an audience of laboring men in Boston. The follow- ing week, the head of the Boston Labor Council spoke to the same group. This worthy, at one point in his address, looked up from his manuscript to say, ‘“‘Presi- dent Eliot spoke to you last Sunday about ‘The Joy of Work’! Instantly a derisive roar of laughter came from the audience. To think that any man should be so silly as to talk of “the joy of work’! Dean Brown says that was the saddest laugh heard in that hall in many a day. The Christian view of work.—Christianity has always had a profound respect for work. By teaching that ‘all service ranks the same with God” it exalted the most menial of tasks: “A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine, Who sweeps a room as for thy laws Makes that and th’ action fine.” Hugh Black transformed Herbert’s lines into prose when he said: “Spiritually it makes little difference what our work is: it is the manner of our doing it. A scavenger may be a truer public servant than a cabinet minister.” Labor, according to the Christian view, is not a brutal something with which the race has been cursed. It should occasion joy and gratitude within us. “All true work,” said Carlyle, “is religion.” This exalted opinion characterized Jesus. He knew the meaning of work. He had probably done years of labor in Nazareth’s carpenter shop. In the closing 156 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK days of his brief life he had to endure, not only the physical strain contingent upon regular travel and speaking, but alert, intellectual effort was called for by his work. Those who have labored and been heavy- laden have been much refreshed at thought of the Christ who thought of them. What impressed Jesus about work was the spiritual significance of it. “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” And he was forever trying to impress others similarly. Many of his parables deal with labor, its performance and significance. While he manifested interest in what men were working at, he was far more interested in what men were working for. Were they out to “make money’? Then they worshiped Mam- mon and not the God in whose name they prayed. Were they performing their tasks simply in order to “make a living’? Then they did not rise far above the beasts. “‘Pagans,’’ he said, “make food and drink their aim.” But were they seeking to render service, know- ing how sacred and divine a thing life really is? Then they were people after his own heart and were doing the will of his Father. THE STRUGGLE OF LABOR Why did not the church work for labor?—lf, then, Christianity believed in the honor of work, you would suppose that Christendom would have been eager to see to it that the workers were honored. But the church scarcely lifted a hand. The Carpenter of Naz- areth was soon forgotten; in his place came a Poten- tate, who of right consorted only with angels, saints, and Popes. The church became a large possessor of property and the employer of many. Small wonder that it concerned itself little with labor conditions. It did what it could to “keep labor in its place,” and LABOR 157 its place was lowly. The Reformation could not have succeeded when it did had not Luther had the protection and friendship of powerful men. Hence we are not surprised that the blackest page in his history should be his attitude toward the peasants when they were in revolt. “Through tribulation and distress.’”,—Labor has had a long and uphill fight of it. Slave, serf, plebeian, “third estate,” proletarian, laboring man—every step of advance won with blood and tears and with suffer- ing inconceivable. The Old Testament prophets were aware of the struggle. “Have we not all one Father?” Malachi had inquired. “Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brothers?” It had always been on the conscience of the Hebrew; he treated his labor often with great considerateness. Not so the rest of the world. Twice, the historians tell us, the plebeians walked out of Rome, threatening to build a city elsewhere, until the threat gained them their point. Feudalism at least did away with pauperism; peo- ple attached to manors might not have much, but they were at least reasonably safe against destitution. Yet it was a long, hard pull before provisions for the health and safety of the toilers began to be made, on any con- siderable scale. Occasionally some beneficent spirit would undertake to devise some occupational scheme which would yield “unto the hired person both in time of scarcity and in time of plenty a convenient propor- tion of wages,” but little came of it. It is still an unsolved riddle, though some of us think we see a light. . . . An English statute of 1514 fixed the hours of labor during March to September from 5 A. M. to 7 or 8 p. M. with half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half off for the midday meal, while in win- 158 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK ter the length of daylight fixed the limits. For all of which they received wages that scarcely served to keep bedy and soul together. By royal prerogative a king might compel men to work at such wages as he saw fit, and none too often did he have a sense of the fitness of things. The dawn of a better day.—The lining on the cloud of such catastrophes as the Great Plague of 1340 was that the shortage of labor, resulting from the appalling number of deaths, made it possible for labor to secure better terms. In vain were statutes enacted and reenacted to compel laborers to work at wages prescribed by those in power. Peasant wars arose in Germany, as Froissart saw it, “all through the too great comfort of the commonalty.” Insurrections in England were led by such men as Wat the Tyler and out of the days of “the mad priest,’’ John Ball, the taunt has come down to us: “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?” In thanks for his efforts he was hanged and quartered at Saint Albans; but with his death English serfdom came to an end. Some were trying to get out from under it all by weird schemes, especially the Anabap- tists. When the Bishop of Munster took the city from them he “had the Anabaptist leaders tortured very horribly and executed in the marketplace, their mu- tilated bodies being hung in cages from a church tower, * that all the world might know that Christian rule had again been restored to Munster! How the church helped.—While the church, on the whole, did but little to help labor on, there were always *H. G. Wells, The Outline of History. Reprinted by permis- sion of The Macmillan Company. LABOR 159 those in the churches who consecrated their lives to the good of the masses that toil. Among these, one remembers at once the names of John Bright and the Lord of Shaftesbury. On occasion a Pope or church- leader was humane ahead of his time. But it was not until recent times, long after the machine age had been ushered in, that the church began seriously to face the challenge of labor. Large sections of the labor world became ardent adherents of the socialism fathered by Karl Marx. In regard to labor, the soul of the church has been saved by the heroic efforts of many of its forward- looking sons and daughters. Largely due to their in- spiration and activities, such agencies as the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and the So- cial Service Federations of the various denominations are cooperating to secure equitable consideration for labor. Despite its frequent neglect of labor in its upward strivings, the church has made many indirect contribu- tions to tts cause. The Christian love of justice, its hatred of oppression, its teaching of brotherhood, its creation of “divine discontent,’ its insistence that people must not be used merely as means but always must be respected as ends in themselves, all went to stimulate labor in its struggles. Such movements as the Wesleyan Revival, with its emphasis on lay preach- ing, did much to provide the labor movement with com- petent spokesmen. Mr. Stead tells impressive stories of the leadership of labor in Great Britain by Wes- leyan local preachers. He also traces the first trade- union to a society of tailors which existed “to promote Amity and true Christian Charity.”? To-day the church is openly at work on work. The formulation *See The Story of Social Christianity, vol. ii, pp. 175-192. 160 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK of the Social Creed of the Churches was a notable achievement. The church is in honor bound to trans- late that creed into life. This will require many a fight! ‘Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.” THe Ricut To LABor . What can Christians do for labor?—-As was inti- mated in our discussion of the child; they can insist that vocational direction be given youth. Many of us are at work at the wrong jobs. Constant trouble re- sults from the maladjustment of people to their tasks. There can be no industrial peace so long as people hate the work they are set to do. “Labor of love’ not in- frequently involves labor we do not love; but for a steady diet only labor we love will do. . Jesus once ob- served that you cannot gather grapes from thorns, yet that ridiculous policy, has been long pursued in the realm of work. People are best fit to work at the work they best fit. No one should just drift into a job; such consecrated and disinterested guidance should be pro- vided that the decision will be best both for the indi- vidual and society. “A workman that needeth not to be ashamed.”’— The Christian interpretation of labor has largely gone by the board. It is time it came back. Labor must be restored to a place of honor. We must cease training children to avoid manual work. Jesus’ hands, as Harry Webb Farrington has pointed out in his splen- did poem, were “rough and brown.” No one needs to blush for attending to household duties, or for toiling “in the sweat of one’s brow.” The laborer must be made to see that labor is honor- able. Any labor that is not ought to be outlawed at once. Every laborer should be able to test his work by at least these five items: LABOR 161 1. His work should be socially useful. 2. It should give him a genuine chance for self- expression. ) 3. It should be a source of joy, not a burden griev- ous to be borne. 4. It should be conducive to his higher life. 5. It should provide him adequate financial returns. A Christian will eagerly set himself to making these tests possible. We must quit speaking of laborers as “hands,” and cease to assume that labor is a mere commodity, to be purchased at the lowest available figure. Labor must be thought-of in terms of human values. That is how Christianity always thinks of folks. The suggestion of inherent inferiority to brain workers, managers, and financiers, must be banished from the mind. » “Work shall be prayer, if all is wrought As thou wouldst have it done; And prayer, by thee inspired and taught, Itself with work be one.” For Discussion 1. Let someone in the class bring in a brief description of the modern labor movements. Then let the mem- bers discuss the following questions: Is it Christian to be, or to call anyone, a “scab”? Is the “open” shop Christian? the “closed” shop? Is it Christian to strike? Would Christ approve “sabotage” ? 2. How should Christians measure work, by its respect- ability or its importance? its wages or its worth? 3. Is the “eight-hour day” too long? By what principle may we decide how long men ought to work? 4. When the monks, during the later part of the Middle Ages, were the expert agriculturists, did they serve the cause of labor? Has the coming of the machine helped the laboring masses? 162 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK 5s. How much education should a workingman have? 6. If you were an employer, how would you treat your “help”? SUGGESTED READINGS Diefendorf, Dorr F., The Christian in Social Relation- ships, Chap. IV. Hodgkin, Henry T., The Christian Revolution, Chap. IX. Smith, George B., The Principles of Christian Living, Chap. XIII. CHAPTER XVII HEALTH VIRTUALLY every religion has endeavored to come “with healing in its wings.” With stately and weighty phrases the Hebrew prophet spoke of the physical blessings that issue from faith in God: “Strengthen the weak hands and confirm... the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not; behold, your God will come. . . . Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame leap as the hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.” Surely, Christianity could say no less than that. CHRISTIAN COMPASSION “The Great Physician.”—If Jesus ever had a sick day, the writers of the Gospels forgot to make men- tion of it. He seemed to exude health. People felt that there was healing in his touch. His was a buoy- ant presence. You had best not go to the artists if you wish a fair picture of him. They have been more eager to make him look good than strong. The rec- ords will serve you better if you care to visualize him. He could not have created the amazing impression he made had he been anything but robust and vigorous. He believed health to be the will of God for His children. Over against the belief, still common in our day, that sickness is really a blessing in disguise and that physical frailty is peculiarly conducive to spirit- uality, we should remember that Jesus never once 163 164 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK hinted that disease was sent from God. Indeed, more than once he spoke of it as Satanic. He effected his cures in the name and power of Deity. Evidently, the God he loved is the God of health. Jesus ever stood ready to “heal them that had need of healing.” Yet he never made a fetish out of health. He was too well aware of more important things than physical well-being. Hence he said that men had better go through life maimed than to wreck their souls. He was less concerned with a right-working body than with a body working right. Yet back in Nazareth he had announced as part of his mission, “to proclaim . recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” The healing ministry—That he sought to fulfill this mission the Gospel records show. Luke, himself a physician, naturally had his eyes wide open for this part of the Master’s work. About a third of all the narratives related in the Gospels are concerned with the healing Christ did. Not only did he himself heal those “‘sick with divers diseases,’ but he sent his dis- ciples “forth to heal the sick.” From that day to this his followers have felt it their duty to assuage human ills and to further health. They may not have used his methods, but in compassion they have been akin to him. The sympathy of Jesus for the sick and unfortunate has ever served as a spur to efforts on their behalf. ‘All these things his spirit writes on truly awakened hearts.” No one in all his- tory can begin to compare with Jesus in providing hu- manity with impetus toward the humane. Compare any land on the globe where the gospel has had no effect with any country that has been under the influ- ence of Christ. Keep in mind that our evils landed in mission fields about as soon as our gospel did— HEALTH | 165 sooner, sometimes—and that often well-intentioned white folks tried to foist what they considered civil- ized habits upon their converts, often with disastrous results. Yet with all this taken due notice of, see the difference in health, or, for the matter of that, the difference in any of the values that, irrespective of race, enrich personality. Jesus has made the dif- ference! The church remains level-headed.—The church at large also never made a fetish out of health. No- where in the New Testament do you read that in thanks for being a Christian, you will suffer disease no more. Despite the fact that healing sects have con- stantly been at hand, with clamorings and éclat, the church has had better sense. Think of Livingstone in Africa, taking a pen in his fevered hands, and writing in his diary, “I am immortal till my work is done.” Then suppose that Livingstone had considered his health first of all! Fancy a Carey or a Moffatt holding health as his chief pursuit! This does not mean, however, that the church has done all it should or could do about health. As a mat- ter of fact it has had and still has, much confusion on this score. Straight up through the Middle Ages, and even to-day, though now on a much smaller scale, leaders of the church practiced and sanctioned “spir- itual healing.” Side by side with this the medical pro- fession grew, until in our day that profession has most matters of health in charge. It was not easy, however, for the church to reconcile these two. Recent findings have convinced some of us that faith-healing as a part of religious work is coming to an end. A com- mittee of a British church body (the Lambeth Con- ference) recently brought in the report that it had “found no evidence of any cases of healing which can- 166 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK not be paralleled by similar cases wrought by psycho- therapy without religion, and by instances of spon- taneous healing which often occur even in the gravest cases in ordinary medical practice.” The church, for the most part now, acknowledges the lead of the physi- cian who comes trained and accredited for the healing of disease. “Greater works than these shall ye do.””—What is here written is not intended to cast reflections upon, or to give an interpretation of, the miraculous cures of Christ. But even a superficial reading of church history should convince us that, for the most part, his disciples have not had the same power. The writer, for one, believes that Jesus did not intend that they should. The significance of Jesus warranted the unique. But if the miraculous could supplant the orderly, intellectual confusion would be upon us. What a topsy-turvy world this then would be! Truth is, it is just by orderly, scientific research and meth- ods that medical science has come as far as it has, which is very far. If you seek for a miracle, here is one for you full grown! Consider the few implements and institutions existent for healing and health in the time of Jesus, and compare with them the instruments, the ability, and the agencies of to-day! How few were the measures then for the protection of health anywhere in the world! Now we have boards of health in nations, States, towns, and communities, and international research boards, and} the training of school children in hygiene. If the change does not strike you as miraculous, any miracle would likely be wasted on you! Remem- ber that, to a Christian, “natural processes” interpret God, and that the spirit of Jesus is in this orderly development. HEALTH 167 Our HEALING ToucH The Christian contribution.—What, then, has Christianity to do with health? Much every way. When you have taken account of all the foregoing, you have still to regard that Christianity has made the surpassing contribution to bodily health. The fact that some of this has been by indirection does not detract one iota from the achievement itself. How could it possibly have contributed better toward physi- cal health than to further clean habits of living and thinking, to provide men with consciences void of offense toward God and men, and to “give the peace that passeth understanding’? For if any one truth above others is slowly but surely making its way into the consciousness of Christendom, it is that the mind and the spirit profoundly influence the body. The only safe way to be physically fit is to be spiritually healthy, and Christianity has majored in healthy- mindedness. Cleanliness.—To Christians cleanliness is next to godliness; indeed, it is a part of it. Christians have become convinced that “the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.” They have felt that God’s shrine ought to be kept at its best. Hence they have taken pains to keep their bodies clean, both outside and in. All of which was bound to be reflected in the life of so- ciety. Christianity has poured clean blood into the veins of the race. And by wholesome family life it has greatly aided health. In the very nature of the case, results such as these cannot be tabulated into statistics. Can you imagine what the figures would run to, were it possible to put all this down? The love of truth.—Then, the Christian love of truth comes in for some credit here. Has it not 168 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK seemed significant to you that science, in the sense that it is an organized body of facts and a deliberate move- ment for their discovery, both came into being and developed in Christendom? Why not somewhere else? What could be more Christian than the patient search for truth for the sake of service? Medical scientists went on that search and we reap the reward, in surgical skill, remedies, psychotherapy, and in preventions worth far more than cures. Future generations will arise to call them blessed. They will have eyes to see the Great Physician in them. Superior citizenship.—Christianity, as we shall have occasion to see later, inspired and instilled good citizenship. It made folks community-minded. They cleaned up their communities. Observe what a notion of town-planning William Penn had in mind: “Let every house be placed, if the person so will, in the middle of its plot, as to the breadthway of it, so that there may be ground on each side for gardens or orchards or fields, that it may be a green country town, which will never be burnt and always whole- some.” So another Quaker, George Cadbury, built his workers model villages, with never more than thir- teen houses on an acre. We are beginning to realize what adequate housing, plenty of air, a pure water supply, proper sewage systems, and public sanitation mean to the health of people. Still, it must be con- fessed that as yet community-spirited citizens are in the minority. But this is true of Christians as yet. By improving the conditions of toil, by widening the margin of leisure, and by adding to the quality of play the cause of health has been mightily advanced. Healing the hurt of the world.—‘‘The leaves of the tree’ of Christianity have not been merely for the HEALTH 169 healing of its followers, but “for the healing of the nations” as well. Not only the church and the school, but also the hospital has come to “the lands that are very far off’ through the Christian Church. The idealism which has made and kept the work of the physician, and that of nursing as well, a profession rather than a mere business, has been responsible for the rise of the medical missionary. Disease, we must surely know, is a complicated, affair. It respects neither race nor creed. It runs riot over boundary lines. What did the influenza care for geography when, during and in the wake of the World War, it swept millions out of life? These women and men who are belting the globe with the visible tokens of Christ’s healing ministry are putting the race in their debt. Alike with engineer and chemist, they are fighting disease where it is most securely intrenched. They are cleaning up the sore spots of the world. Hats off to them all! The consecration of courage.—Those who have the love of God and the spirit of Christ in their lives gather courage with the years to challenge every disease that plagues the children of men, for dis- ease is a wanton thing. It levies enormous tribute. It makes multitudes socially ineffective; unfit for the tasks of the Realm of God. In the spirit of Jesus, with relentless ardor, they are out to exorcise every demon of disease. Often they have hard sledding of it. Sometimes they get rid of one to find another equally bad. Besides, people are frequently slow to follow their best advice. Practice is not up to knowledge. But they are not dismayed. When the ranks of their heroes thin, the spirit of Christ brings recruits, and the battle goes on. Some poet seeking a theme fit for the best of his art might well strike his lyre in praise 170 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK of these who heal our hurts and who are the helpers of health. Let us now once again enumerate the great things the Lord has done. He who for our sakes became poor, has enriched us all; he has, as was prophesied of him, served to enlighten every one who comes into the world; he has given his blessing to labor and so made labor a blessing, and by his healing touch, brought gladness to all the earth. For Discussion 1. Should the churches engage in healing by way of heal- ing missions, etc.? (Someone might report on the Emmanuel Movement. ) 2. Should there be definite cooperation between clergy- men and physicians? 3. Do healing sects emphasize any truth most churches neglect? If so, how could the churches make like emphasis? Do you know any churches that do? 4. Will the time ever come when there will be no more disease? 5. In which way does a young person who neglects his health injure the Christian cause? 6. Has God any bodies except ours in which to live? Does he need any others? How can we best keep in mind the fact that our bodies are the temples of God? SUGGESTED READINGS Brown, Charles R., Faith and Health. Holmes, John M., Talks to High School Boys. Ward, Harry F., Poverty and Wealth, Chap. IX. PART V CHRISTIANITY AT WORK ON CULTURE Let my breast be bared To every shaft, then, so that Love be still My one celestial guide the while I sing Of those who caught the pure Promethean fire One from another, each crying as he went down To one that waited, crowned with youth and joy: “Take thou the splendor, carry it out of sight, Into the great new age I must not know, Into the great new realm I must not tread.’’! —Alfred Noyes. *From Collected Poems of Alfred Noyes. Reprinted by per- mission of Frederick A. Stokes Company, publishers. ihe A sis, hea vi0 iit an Oise avn Hav a Se AYA pa fa Paea it DEN ne ae wa My ire b kat q Ta Fy een ha ” > % 5 pa eet ri } . sis i) ip a ety vr me Paste “ Fy cab a MS ite Ge ia tye iy Shak wy in ba elas ten Rae i vy wedi Mi 4 ae ek ay tert in Ai aes u ; eins ~ eae wh eye sue ght ay ae ar mt a aa ae a) “ae Mh hath ci Fy é whe sinks are iy Ary ve. he nar ae i" ah ; fete ty Shean if } 4 ~ ] Lg ae "o ia us HO PES Tae ley ee sis et ft ; i An j CHAPTER XVIII CIVILIZATION THE average person is a believer in progress. Usu- ally he assumes it to be inevitable. He thinks it 1s bound to come. Some of the world’s best thinkers— great men like Herbert Spencer—made this mistake. But progress is not inevitable; it has been and may be retarded. You have to work for it. Progress has been made in the Christian era. Let us not loosely assume that it had to come anyway. There were reasons why it came: the chief of these we have been and are tracing in this book. But there were other reasons than the one we are dealing with. Let us not, in our enthusiasm for Christianity, suppose all prog- ress due to this single agency. It is questionable whether any complex sociological achievement can be credited to any one cause. We ought to be glad to give credit where credit is due. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE PAST The forerunners of civilization.—Boast is often made of our Christian civilization. This is hotly re- futed by those who feel that Christendom as yet stands but upon the fringe of the Christian life. But before anyone had the courage to call civilization Christian, civilization itself was achieved. And _ be- fore there was civilization there was barbarism. We usually remember only the barbarous in barbarism: its ferocious, inhuman, merciless side. When men speak of Christianity’s overthrow of barbarism it is 173 174 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK this to which they allude. But there is more to re- member, for during this period man began to achieve tools suited to his hand and to the brain back of the hand. The achievements of barbarism were the stepping-stones to civilization. Some students go so far as to say that man’s achievements during barbar- ism transcend in relative importance all his subsequent works. We need not go to this length to honor those unknown heroes of an obscure past, who had the valor to set out on uncharted ways of action and of thought. What monuments they deserve! By the same token the savage forebears of these barbarians are entitled to our vote of thanks. To say that God was working his will in and through these unheralded multitudes is to say that the spiritual came to expression in the evolutionary process. Christians interpret the rise of the many by the grace of God. “Heading the dreary marches through dark ages; Where the rest perished that the best might be, Out of the zons raw and red with bloodshed, Man that was caveman, found the stars. Forever Man to the stars goes marching from the sea.’’? The meaning of civilization.—The etymology of the word suggests the period since mankind reached sufficient intelligence and enough social unity to de- velop systems of government. More specifically, it is used to denote the time since systems of writing have been in use among the more highly developed races. In popular usage, however, it has come to imply “all that progress in arts, government, social equipment, social cooperation, and culture which separates man as member of the higher societies from a condition of *From Jn Memoriam, John Curtis Underwood. Used by per- mission of the author. CIVILIZATION 175 barbarism.” It has been “a twofold movement toward aggregation, organization, and stability on the one hand, and toward culture and efficiency on the other.” You will note that these definitions are supplementary, not contradictory. Progress in civilization.—These definitions prove that civilization is an ancient thing. They indicate, furthermore, that the race knew progress prior to the coming of Christ. Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia, Carthage, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, and China— China, so long, and so long to others unknown, in the van of civilization—what stories these names tell! Through (and sometimes despite) these varying civil- izations, civilization moved. ¥ The experience of the Greek indicates what hap- pened elsewhere. ‘‘The Greek grew to be Panhellenic and then went to Egypt and Babylon, and reached some conception of a humanity larger than Hellendom. And it is all reflected in speculation—unity grows to be a larger and larger circle; gods are fused more than ever, interpreted in new tongues and domiciled in new pantheons. Nor is this all. Law emerges more and more in cities, and Justice takes a larger place in men’s thoughts. . . . All the while the alphabet is working its miracles; those handy letters, the trader’s useful device, serve other ends; books spring up, and books mean modernity. Science and philosophy seize their chance, and things are said in books that make Olym- pus look strange and old; it will need overhauling, and it gets it.’’* All of which is said here that you may be just in not overestimating Christianity’s part in establishing civilization among men. * Reprinted from Progress in Religion to the Christian Era, by T. R. Glover, by permission of publishers, George H. Doran Company. 176 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK THE DIFFERENCE JESUS MADE Civilization becomes Christian.—We are not con- cerned in this study with the rise of civilization. Whether the civilizations are due to climatic conditions, or to economic, racial or other sources, is a debate of large moment. But Christianity, as such, is not con- cerned with it. This is to say, it is not concerned with the roots of civilization. It is concerned with its fruits. Christianity did not form civilization; it transformed it! People are forever assuming that they are dealing with a static Christianity and an iron-bound human nature. There can be no more serious mistake. Both are dynamic. Christianity cannot stay put and stay Christian. Human nature also has been and is on the move. Christianity did make a change in social cus- toms and in social procedure. But it did more. It changed men’s motives. It has been said of Jesus that he had a passion for personality. “He knew what was in man.” And he brought it out! The man who became a Christian learned to look out upon the world and say, “I am as good as you are!’’—the conviction of democracy; and as he looked long enough he came also to see and say, “You are as good as I am!’’—the conviction of evangelism. Chris- tianity came to mean two things to the followers of Jesus: 1. A higher valuation of the individual person. 2. A widened conception of duty and responsibil- ity to one’s fellow men. When these ideas became prevalent, they became revolutionary. They “turned the world upside down.” “The extended conception,” said Benjamin Kidd, “of the answer to the question, ‘Who is my neighbor ?’— CIVILIZATION 177 which resulted from the characteristic doctrines of the Christian religion, a conception transcending all the claims of the family group, State, nation, people, or race, and even all the interests comprised in any exist- ing order of society—has been the most powerful evo- lutionary force which has ever acted on society.” Civilization rests upon a new basis.—Civilization is less a state than a process. When we say that civ- ilization began to be Christianized, we mean that a Christian process set in, and its end is by no means in sight. But it has been at work long enough to make clear to any observer that “of his fullness have we all received.” This process accelerated progress. But henceforth progress was to be measured less by what man did and more by what man became. There came a new emphasis. Civilization was shifted from the basis of achievements to the basis of attainments. Of course, down through the ages, these issues were often confused. Jesus once shrewdly told a story of a man who had so “much goods’ that he finally said to himself, “Soul, take thine ease; eat, drink and be merry.” This man was talking to his stomach when he thought he was talking to his soul! Many, like him, think that because they have, they are. Jesus uttered an eager warning lest what men seek to obtain prevent what they wish to attain. Not even now is every Christian aware of what this means. But in every age some have understood. There have always been Christians who were confident that Christianity 1s God’s device to bring mankind to manhood. A galaxy of civilizers—We have seen that the be- lief that humanity was to find newness of life in Christ produced the Christian Church. Out from this church went a glorious company of civilizers. Paul heads the list of them. As the church developed, 178 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK others came. Elsewhere in this series you were given a charming introduction to a number of these.* The gentle-hearted and great-minded Ulfilas took his civil- izing gospel to the Vandals and the Goths; the pugi- listic Martin of Tours went to preach to the Franks; the heroic Patrick faced the Druids with his message; Columba went to Scotland; Columban to Gaul; Augustine (the missionary) to those whom Gregory the Great had suspected to be “not Angles, but angels” ; Boniface to the Germans; Ansgar to the Danes and Swedes; while through Cyril and Methodius the Bul- garians and Hungarians had the gospel preached to them. To name these, however, is just to begin the roll- call of those who felt “that in the name of Jesus, the world should be reborn,” and who lived and suffered and died, in obedience to the vision that was theirs. “The fight which the church had to make against the new danger from the barbarians, far outweighs, in importance, and in claim upon the gratitude of pos- terity, all particular pieces of legislation. The Western empire fell in 476. From that time, till 800, when Charlemagne was crowned in Rome as emperor of the Romans, invasion after invasion swept over Europe. Goths, Vandals, Franks, Huns, Lombards, and finally the followers of Mohammed, brought fire and sword on rich plains and noble cities. “Against them all the church stood forth as the one representative of a higher and a civilized ideal. She subdued, she taught, she Christianized.”®> The forces of Christendom, hampered without and within as they “Builders of the Church and The Spread of Christianity. The Abingdon Press. *J. K. Mozley, The Achievements of Christianity. Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company. CIVILIZATION 179 have been and still are, have wrought vast changes in the earth. Some of these have been and will be recounted here, and others have been suggested in Tucker’s Builders of the Church and Hutchinson’s The Spread of Christianity. THE MopDERN EMPHASIS Civilization continues.—The church is at it still. You will hear it said time and again that there has been a reversion to barbarism, but in every age men have been able to point to a dearth of moral enthusi- asm. They have felt that civilization does not yet amount to much. This is why a brilliant Englishman by the name of Carpenter once wrote a scintillant essay on “Civilization, Its Cause and Cure.” Over against this one may well remind oneself that, although Protestantism only half succeeded at the task God set his church to, to-day it busies itself, as it never has heretofore, with bringing the good news of God to all the people on earth. John Stuart Mill said that “civilization in every one of its aspects 1s a struggle against the animal instincts. Over some, even of the strongest of them, it has shown itself capable of acquiring abundant control.”’ Here the fine hand of Christianity is plainly to be seen. Mr. H. G. Wells tells us that “Christianity opened men’s eyes to fresh aspects of a unified world.”” Yes, and more. It opened men’s eyes to the possibility of a redeemed world, brought under the dominion of the Prince of Peace. The more Christian one is, the more determined one becomes to set up God’s realm among men. Our missionaries have majored in this business of civilizing. As Dr. J. F. Dennis, in his Christian Mis- sions and Social Progress, showed years ago, missions resulted in the making of new public opinion, better 180 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK methods of education and a superior sort of it; new literatures have been created by them and the intellec- tual life has been stimulated. ‘The ideals of service, a nobler conception of patriotism and politics and cleaner personal habits have been introduced by mis- sions. Women and children have been lifted upon a nobler plane. Cannibalism, slavery, human sacrifices, cruelty departed under their influence; community wel- fare, sanitation, hospitals, homes, and better laws have come. And still their good work goes on! For Discussion 1. How would you distinguish between Christianity and civilization ? Would you call an educated man, who is morally infe- rior, civilized ? 3. Could anything beside Christianity have brought the civilization we now have? 4. Suppose the missionary fervor of the early church had been maintained unimpaired? Would the world be civilized now? 5. Did the new study of the life of Jesus have anything to do with the modern increase of missionary effort? 6. Along which lines, do you suppose, will civilization advance in the immediate future? to SUGGESTED READINGS Fosdick, Harry Emerson, Christianity and Progress, Chap. I. Ellwood, C. A., The Reconstruction of Religion, Chap. I. Cross, George, Creative Christianity, Chap. III. CHAPTER XIX LITERATURE CHRISTIANITY has given us the wonderbook of the world. Like all great religions, Christianity is ex- pressed in, and sustained by a literature as well as by institutions. This literature has grown to very large proportions. Yet the Bible is by far its most impor- tant part. Take the Bible out and the rest will matter but little. “Hoty Bisite, Book DIVINE” The Christian book.—What a book it is! Con- sider how it has put our literature in its debt. In the history of missions you may read of languages that have been made for it. It speaks in almost every tongue to which mortals give ear. No other book enjoys such prominence. Measured by circulation or by influence, it stands in a class by itself. You stretch language out of proportions if you say that this book has competitors. There is no book like it. And there will be none. Christians have big business on hand with this book. This business is urgent. It ought to be attended to at once. We must teach people to know the Bible. How shall we teach them to know it if we are igno- rant of it ourselves? Ignorance of the Bible.—When Tyndale vowed that he would make the Bible known to the English plowboy he dreamed a dream that was beginning to come true when, but a few years later, he was put 181 182 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK to death in the neighborhood of Brussels by order of Emperor Charles. Were he here to-day, his heart would be glad and sad. Glad for the way in which the Bible is being spread, sad because of the way in which it is being neglected. The world’s great Bible Societies would stir him to the heart, but the use of the Bible as a parlor decoration would strike him as a desecration. He would doubtless grieve for the many who have a Bible but have no clear idea of what the Bible means. To many people the Bible is still a closed book. They keep it in their homes, but out of their hearts and heads. They speak lightly of it but fail to think deeply about it. They wish it kept in our schools, but will not school themselves in it. They give the Bible the treatment Voltaire gave to God, if the story told about him may be believed. He tipped his hat as he passed a church, and his friend said, “I thought you did not believe in God.’”’ Voltaire replied, “We salute, but we do not speak.’””’ Many men study more to be lodge members than ever they do to be Chris- tians. Here, then, is a book people ought to study— Christians most of all. One practical way to bring this about is for you to make yourself familiar with it. It is not an easy book to know. To grasp its secret one is compelled to put one’s mind at work. The wisest among us are first to say, with Edna St. Vincent Millay: “What a big book for such a little head!’ But those who struggle to know it will reap ample rewards. It yields its richest treasures to those who study it most. The notion sometimes obtains among young people that the Bible is an exceedingly “dry” book. They think of it much like the person who wrote on the fly leaf of an old book of sermons in the Boston library: LITERATURE 183 “If there should be another flood, For refuge hither fly; Though all the world should be submerged This book would still be dry.” But the reason for this is that they read it without a fair idea of how to go at it. If you read by rote “from cover to cover,’ many a drowsy moment awaits you; but if you will read it with your mind, and in more intelligible order, you will find the reading of no book more rewarding. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WorD Interpretation of the Bible.—Another service Christians must render is to interpret the Bible in the terms of our day. The man who talks of the Bible as if it were a book that can be read as one reads a letter or newspaper speaks more foolishly than most folks care to speak. We cannot be thankful enough to the scholars who have brought to light the facts about the Bible. We ought to be heartily ashamed of the many men and women who glibly hurl taunts of derision at those literary investigators commonly called “higher critics.” Some do not like to have us talk of interpreting the Bible because they are sure that the Bible can interpret itself. We ought to recognize that it has failed so to do. What a strange, contra- dictory medley of interpretations have people read out of this book or into it! Yet they have mostly insisted that their interpretation was the only accurate one. People must be made to see that this book was born in the East, but grew to life in the West. The Bible lands to-day are the lands of the Koran. From the minarets of their mosques the Moslem message sounds. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”’ Only the West received him, and that received him only 184 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK in part. The Western world is swayed by an Eastern book, or, to speak more correctly, by a collection of Eastern books. Getting the Bible into trouble.—This has had se- rious consequences. It has caused the Bible to be grossly misunderstood. People mistook it for some- thing mechanically inspired, “equally and in all parts” the word of God. This theory took a firm hold on Protestantism soon after the passing of the leaders of the Reformation. It caused mischief in the church and is still working much harm. A celebrated scold is reported to have praised the Bible as “that splendid mine of invective.” But with this theory the Bible became an arsenal of arguments. In every debate resort was had to “proof-texts.” They culled from the Bible those sections that favored their contentions. It did not take large ingenuity to create, by the aid of this theory, creeds contradictory of all the rest. The slave and liquor traffics and war were defended with scriptural quotations, and Paul’s words were often used to “keep woman in her place.” Missing the point.—Not that sober counsel had been or was lacking. Bishop Butler in his great Analogy of Religion had insisted that “reason can, and ... ought to judge, not only the meaning, but also the morality and the evidence of revelation,” but sane advice such as this made scant impression then, and little impression now, on those who have once surrendered to this theory. ‘‘What damned error but some sober brow has blest it and approved it with a text?” “Literalists’” claim the Bible as a textbook, but they use it chiefly as a book of texts. They are all eyes for what is in the Bible, but remain quite blind to what the Bible is for. Our new opportunity.—Yet upon the church at LITERATURE 185 large this theory is loosing its hold. This for the sim- ple reason that we have come to know something of the mind of the East. For some generations past our scholars and missionaries have had access to the East. By way of archeology and numerous other studies they have put us on the trail of the way the people of whom we read in the Bible lived and thought, and just what the Bible-writers meant with the words they used. We do not yet know all that we need to know. We are waiting for further light. Meanwhile, we are deeply grateful for the light that is being shed. Before the days of these scholars we had no way of knowing how the mind of the East did its work. One guess was as good as another; churches split and sects made war over the guesses made. But now we are coming to know what the Bible really means. We see now that few of the thought-forms used by biblical writers are in vogue to-day. So we try to interpret their thoughts in lan- guage that reaches our minds and answers to our needs. This we must do for our own age. In every age this same thing will probably need to be done. THe BIBLE AND LIFE Testing the Bible out.—There is another reason why this mechanical theory is going the way of all flesh. The scientific habit has taken hold on men. Luther could not stand Copernicus, and the Roman Church had burned Bruno at the stake! But the church could not always play the fool like that. Time came when the leaders of the church welcomed the facts of science. Astronomy, geology, the theory of evolution each came to make its impression on the minds of Christian men. Thus the Bible itself was finally put under the 186 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK searchlight, and all things pertaining to it were care- fully scrutinized. And with what result? They found the Bible a library of books written at different times, under differing circumstances, by different people with differing viewpoints, who wrote to tell the story of God’s interest in, care for, and love of them and us. But they also found that this view of the Bible im- mensely increased its value for them and for the world. No need for harmonizing or allegorizing passages now! One could now read the record as it is, without mental reservations, and see for oneself the progress of God’s revelation to men. The Bible became for them the book of life, as it had not been heretofore. The in- spiration of the Bible became clear to them, not from a theory, but because of experience. They knew the Bible to be inspired because it inspired them to better living and to a deeper love of the good, the beautiful, and the true. “Beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord; My spirit pants for thee Living Word.” We must be considerate.—Do not for one moment suppose that it 1s easy to shift from the old view to the new one. To wrench oneself loose from the moor- ings one has been trained to revere hurts to the core. Only they know who have been there. Ask anyone who was taught to “believe the Bible word for word” how went the journey to the higher view. You will get an impressive recital of misgivings and of anguish that you will not soon forget. Never make light of the struggle this transition involves. Both the spirit and mind of Christ must be in you if you really care to help people through. If we do our part in our day, LITERATURE 187 we shall spare future generations the pain such people now endure. The intent of the Bible.—It is one thing to get at the truth about the Bible. It is another and a far more important thing to get at the truth of the Bible. And it is this of which the world most stands in need. The Bible tells a great story of the dealings of God with men. Besides, it reveals God’s will of the deal- ings of men with men. No man ever went to jail or spilt his blood for the Bible in the hope that thus there might be preserved to the race a literary masterpiece or an interesting field for research. They suffered and gave up their lives for the message of the Book. This is why the church paid in pain the cost of making it possible for men to be free to read it anywhere under the sun. If ever you feel in need of a dose of heroism, read the story of some of those who labored and died that we might have this book to read. If that does not put red blood into you, count yourself clean gone. They risked their lives for the Bible because they be- lieved that God speaks his truth through it. There is a sense in which we must all be Bibles, just as in a vital sense we must all be Christs. We are to be “living epistles, read and known of all.” In us, once again, the word of God must become flesh. But in the Bible the word of God was made book. Let us master it, circulate it, and interpret it spiritually. Yet ANOTHER TASK Religious literature.—We have already noted that Christianity has caused the existence of a large body of religious literature, not the least of which is its col- lection of great hymns. Here too is a field.that offers golden opportunities. It may be, as a gruff old friend used to complain, that “there never was a time when 188 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK folks read so much and thought so little” ; still the fact that they do read adds the labor of providing an ade- quate religious literature. With the opening of new fields, such as dramatization in religious work, and enlarged educational projects, books and articles must be produced that link the message of Christ to the thinking of the people. Christianizing literature.—But an even greater task confronts Christian men and women. We must not simply make religious literature; we must make litera- ture religious. This does not mean that every book and poem will need to be pious in tone or religious in its wording. It does mean that our literature should be written in the spirit of Jesus. It should aim to be wholesome and clean; it should become less necessary for us to wade through a cribful of rubbish to get at a kernel of truth. We shall have to correct our standards. Now we often call literature good because of how it says things rather than because of what it says. Long years ago a prophet said, “Woe to writers that write perverse- ness.” That is a passage the church needs to quote for the benefit of the writing-craft. Perhaps we should stress the matter a bit and show that, while there is woe to them, there is much woe through them. They have damaged character, undermined faith, lowered life, beclouded issues, and perverted tastes. They used their brilliancy to dazzle, not direct. Here is a vast field in which young people who “know God” may “do exploits.” “Feeble and false the brightest flames by thoughts severe unfed ; Book-lore ne’er served when trials came, nor gifts where faith was dead.” LITERATURE 189 For DiscussIon . Name a book that tells how the Bible came together ; name another that tells how it has come down to us. Should every Christian read the Bible through? How would you go about it to do so? . How much of the Bible should all of us know by heart? . What is it that distinguishes religious from other literature? Can you mention some “regular” novels that are really Christian ? . If you, as a Christian, went in for literature, what would you write about? SUGGESTED READINGS Wood and Grant, The Bible as Literature. Hough, Lynn H., The Inevitable Book. Laufer, Calvin W., The Bible: Story and Content. CHAPTER XX TRE ARTS “AuNTY,” said a Scotch lad, after they had been watching a sunset for a while, “when I grow up, [’m going to help God paint the sky!’ There is something of this desire in every normal being. Socrates prayed, “Make thou me beautiful within,” because he was forever trying to make others beautiful. All of us wish to touch life with light and glory. We are all eager to make life beautiful. In this wish we are partners—or, better, heirs—of Jesus Christ. He helped God paint the sky! And he hands on the brushes to us! ART “We beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.”— In one of his notable sermons the late Bishop Quayle reminded his hearers that we should not call Jesus “the good shepherd” unless we remember that he really said, “I am the beautiful shepherd.” In every age Jesus has been just this to multitudes. Perhaps this was because his beauty went to the deeps. As no other he “adorned the doctrine of God.” To him God was beautiful. Hence, only that was beauty which led men to see and know God. Art and art.—In so doing Jesus took sides in a struggle that existed prior to his coming and that is on to-day. Two conceptions of art have been striving for the mastery, a higher and a lower. On the one side there have been those who did not believe that the 190 THE ARTS 191 esthetic needed to be ethical. To them beauty was “‘its own excuse for being.’’ This is the view Jesus op- posed with all his energy. He was against things that “indeed appear beautiful outward but are within full of ... all uncleanness.” It seemed folly to him to wash “the outside of the cup,” while no care was taken for the filth inside of it. He felt that people who did this got their values mixed. He warned men against taking tinsel and trappings for beauty that inheres. “Consider the lilies of the field. . . . I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Art follows Christ.—Take it through the centuries, and you find that the artists have taken their clue from Christ. They have used art to further goodness and to teach the truths of God. The contribution of Jesus to art is most impressive. The reason why Christian- ity has been at work on art is because Christianity has been at work in art. The greatest of the painters have been followers of Christ. Art would border penury, both in ideals and output, if Jesus had not come. It goes without saying that pictures may be religious without being religious pictures. Yet a large propor- tion of the masterpieces of the world either have Christ for their theme or take their theme from Christ. In all the schools of painters—Roman, Florentine, Venetian, Flemish, Dutch, French, English, or Amer- ican—craftsmen of the brush have been setting the life, the love, and the lessons of Jesus to art. Among the masters and masterpieces, Christians and Christ pre- dominate! Michael Angelo, Leonardi da Vinci, Titian, Paul Veronese, Rubens, Rembrandt, Tissot, Holman Hunt—these are ancient and modern names artists conjure with, and their greatest productions deal with Christ, or his mother, or his disciples, or with the 192 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK things he said and did, or would say and do now! Chrysostom thought that art was merely the work of man, while the world with its beauty was the work of God. If only he had known these men! For by their hands the hand of God leaped to life on the canvas. They preach in paint. ARCHITECTURE Christian cathedrals.—But if paintings kept silence, the stones would cry out! For Christianity may be traced in architecture and sculpture, in statues and cathedrals, “soaring heavenward, like martyr flames suddenly turned to stone.” Those European cathe- drals, whose pictures adorn our walls and beautify our books, were conceived in Christian minds and exe- cuted by Christian hands. An unimaginable amount of devotion went into the making of them. Not only their spires, or their windows, or their conspicuous carvings, but the minutest details were perfected with a care that must forever elicit praise. Once you have feasted your eyes on them, you can never be made to believe that the only motive for which men will do hard work is the motive of gain. Some of the cathe- drals were centuries in building. Yet successive gener- ations maintained the craftsmanship. In obscure nooks and out-of-the-way places the most magnificent and conscientious of work may be seen. Why did these artists and artisans lavish their labor upon them? Chiefly because these cathedrals were the symbols of Christ. “For the love of God, not for mere praise or hire” they did their best and left to the world this, their heritage. Two eras of building.—With the eleventh century began the great era of cathedral building in the Old World. Now, nine centuries later, a renaissance is THE’ ARTS 193 with us in the new. All was not clear gain then. So imposing were those cathedrals that they came to be overbearing; in the shadow of them men were not free to think. Yet, despite all this, their existence is justified. There they stand to-day, shorn of their ancient power, and hence clothed in greater beauty and in meaning more spiritual. They serve to put those who see them in mind of eternal things, worship and sacrifice, God and Christ and his reign. Christian de- votion inspired them, and they, in turn, inspire Chris- tian devotion. Up to us!—There is no reason why all should not be clear gain now that we are turning our thoughts to these “sermons in stone.” When Luther and the re- formers turned against the arts they wrought great harm among us. Protestants have generally been wary of the arts. In these United States there are but few cathedrals of which we may make boast. Most of us still work and worship in inept and inartis- tic structures. Yet even we are seeing a light. We are putting more store by beauty; we are enriching our rituals; we are making our buildings for worship buildings of worship. To “worship the King in his beauty” we shall worship the King in beauty. The time is not far distant when the preaching im our churches shall be supplemented by the preaching of our churches. There is not much of a future for the church which is unwilling to honor Christ by its looks! Music “Music which is an earnest of a heaven.”— Jesus set men singing. And for a good reason. He gave them something worth singing about. “The music of the gospel led them home.” Count the mu- sicians who count in the world of music, and you will 194 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK not get far before you discover how many of them were lovers of Christ—Beethoven, Gaul, Gounod, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schumann, Shubert, Stainer, Sullivan, Wagner: singularly Chris- tian in character! If you have never yet heard some mighty choral rendition of one of the great oratorios, such as Handel’s “Messiah,” or the “Redemption” of Gounod, know by these presents that you have yet to know one of the choicest experiences human life af- fords. It is so well-known a fact one needs scarcely mention it, that these music masters either had Christ for their theme or were making their music in the mind that was in him. You may read testimonies like Haydn’s who, before he sat down to work out “The Creation,’ “earnestly prayed to God that he would enable me to praise him worthily.”’ “To sing the great Redeemer’s praise.’?—The Reformers almost atoned for their revolt against art by their enthusiasm for congregational singing. Lu- ther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and even more his cradle song, crooned over many a one born in some “old country:’ “Away in a Manger,” set the fashion for Protestantism. ‘To-day hymnody has be- come an art—yes, even more than art; it has become a treasure. Watts and Wesley and a host of lesser lights, though by no means lesser spirits, have had their words set to tunes that serve as matchless settings for these gems of the spirit. Christianity, it has been said, has put music at its most exalted service. It has not simply employed music as a means of pleasure, but it has made it express the deepest hopes and aims of the human soul. The great singers.—Perhaps a word about poetry will not be amiss right here. For poetry, like love, is “music in search of a word.” There is a sense in which SE THE ARTS 195 all literature is art. But poetry surely is. Nothing is more so. And Christianity is profoundly poetic. It would be strange indeed had not Christianity influenced the great “singers” of the race. For the story of that influence read the major poets. You will be hard put to find more than one or two who have no glad word for Christ or do not extol the message and the cause which was his. Many of the major poets have been major prophets of the social meaning of Christianity. And while we think of it, two monks, Cadmon and Bede, provided our great poets with their literary in- strument, which they have so well used, and never used so well as in behalf of Christ. ~ DRAMA Christianizing the stage.—Christianity has much at stake in the drama and in the dramatic arts. The drama too received the impact of Christian ideas and ideals, but for reasons too many to enumerate here the fostering care of the church was gradually with- drawn. As concerns Protestantism, enmity between the stage and the pulpit has been very marked. While some splendidly Christian plays have been written and produced, and not a few have reflected the teachings of our Lord, the theatrical world at present, as well as the motion picture industry, is, if not anti-Christian, certainly unchristian. To have so great an asset with- held from the service of Christ ought to give us pause. The Protestant Church is now giving attention to it. In this day of the democratization of the theater, and of the utilization of dramatics and pageantry in all forms of education, including the religious, many are devoting their talents to the expression of Christian life and ideals in this new and expanding era of dra- matic expression. They are putting drama at the 196 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK service of religion. There is room in all the arts for new expressions of Christ. But here is a needy field, in which Christian playwrights and dramatic directors may serve. And unless the writer mistakes all the signs of the times, the next chapter in the story of the church will contain a considerable section of histrionic history. For Discussion Is beauty as important to religion as truth? Let some member of the class give a brief report on the Passion Play at Oberammergau. What is the value of such a production? Will a “mission” conducted in a rented store, with folding chairs and an antiquated organ make much of an impression on the foreign-born who are trained to art? How can they be appealed to? Could our hymnals be improved musically? What do you think of “gospel” songs? Are there many hymns that express the social gospel, stewardship, interna- tionalism, or any of the newer phases of the church’s work? Should there be? Could the church Christianize the theater? If not, what could it do? If so, how? Mention some great poems that have impressed you as Christian. SUGGESTED READINGS Vogt, Van Ogden, Art and Religion. Bowran, John G., Christianity and Culture. Bailey, Albert E., The Use of Art in Religious Education. i CHAPTER XXI SCIENCE Ir used to be said of religion and science that they were old foes. It can be said to-day that they may be the best of friends. All indications point to a deep- ening of this friendship. Doctor Dinsmore tells of a witty preacher named Sidney Smith who heard two women quarreling. Each woman was in her own house, and the houses stood on opposite sides of the street. ‘‘Those two women,” said the wit, “‘will never agree; for they occupy different premises.” This was for long the trouble with science and Christianity. We are coming to see now that they are “useless each with- out the other.” Multitudes, however, are not yet aware of this. To set people right on this matter is to render a great piece of service. Christians who make clear and keep clear the cooperation of science and Christianity do both a good turn. SCIENCE AND RELiciIon Botu AFTER THE TRUTH No conflict.—The first thing that needs to be broad- cast is that there needs to be no conflict between sci- ence and religion. In an earlier chapter your atten- tion was called to the dogmatists in the church. It were strange indeed had there been no dogmatists in science. There have been many of them. They created the impression that men of science are neces- sarily irreligious. It ought to be said that to-day men of this stripe are few. Should you ever encounter one, you may be sure that he is simply so belated a 197 198 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK specimen as to be a candidate for the museum of an- tiquities. He is a voice out of a past that is gone for good. But the impression once made by men of this kind persists to our day. Religious scientists—The truth of the matter is that the great men of science have belteved in religion. Some of them have been grossly slandered on this score. Darwin has been widely heralded as an athe- ist, when, as a matter of fact, he was nothing of the sort. Huxley called himself an agnostic. That is a Greek word, with rather an ugly meaning; the Latin equivalent for it is “ignoramus”! Anyone who knows the work Huxley did will realize at once that when he called himself that, he grossly underestimated himself. Of all men, here was one man this word would fit least! He assured his friend, Charles Kingsley, that he would not lie, even if he “had to go to hell for it’; any lover of truth will recognize this as a fairly reli- gious remark. His ideal was: “To smite all humbugs however big; to give a nobler tone to science; to set an example of abstinence from petty personal controver- sies and of toleration for everything but lying; to be indifferent as to whether the work is recognized as mine or not, so long as it is done.’”’ Surely, he was not far from the kingdom of God! We ought to dis- abuse the minds of people of the ancient notion that the greatest of our scientists were necessarily the foes of religion and had little use for Christianity. Few men in the world of science can hope to compare in achievement and standing with Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Raleigh, and Pasteur. But these all were religionists, devout followers of Jesus Christ. If they could, without mental reservation, be Chris- tians as well as scientists, that is all the proof one needs that no inherent conflict exists between the two. SCIENCE 199 The spiritual giants and science.—The claim can further be made that the great men of religion have believed in science. This needs to be said much and often. The five most potent personalities in Christian history were Jesus, Paul, Augustine, Luther, and John Wesley. Jesus committed his followers to a sincere search for all the truth there is. He insisted that men ought to think. He said truth would set them free. He was not controlled by tradition or by hallowed cus- tom. He was all the while speaking of freedom and growth and truth. With all the ado that has been and still is being made by those who try to cram Christian- ity into calloused creeds, it has not been noted enough that Jesus showed no trace of opposition to science, and threw all his influence on the side of the open mind. The same may be said of Paul. When the news came out that there is no break in the creative process from nebula to man, a distinguished preacher said, “This law of growth is what Paul and I have been looking for for some time.” In the year 400 Augustine uttered a warning we do well to heed to-day: “There is some question as to the earth or the sky, or the other elements of this world . respecting which one who is not a Christian has knowledge, derived from most certain reasoning and observation: and it is very disgraceful and mischiey- ous, and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Christian, speaking of such matters as being according to the Scriptures, should be heard ‘by an unbeliever talking such nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him to be as wide from the mark as east and west, can hardly refrain himself from laughing.” In Luther’s case the question of the connection be- tween religion and science as such was not up for de- bate. The dispute that centered about the Reforma- 200 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK tion had other things in mind. But the motive back of the reformers’ efforts was at least in part scientific. Guizot judged that the Reformation was “‘a vast effort by the human mind to achieve its freedom.” It is difficult to see how science, as we know and honor it to-day, would have been possible at all had Protestant- ism not been born. Wesley went about seeking “two things in the world, truth and love.” In his search for truth he reached some astounding conclusions. Read these words of his: “By what degrees does Nature raise herself to man? ... How will she rectify this head that is always inclined toward earth? How change these paws into flexible arms? What method will she make use of to transform these crooked feet into skillful and supple hands? .. . The ape is this rough draft of man, this rude sketch, an imperfect representation which nevertheless bears a resemblance to him, and is the last creature that serves to display the admirable progression of the works of God. . . . But mankind have their graduations as well as other productions of our globe. There is a prodigious number of continued links between the most perfect man and the ape.”? Wesley used not only the scientific method, but he had the scientific spirit. “We think and let think,’ he averred of himself and his followers. As Doctor Millikan, himself a distinguished scien- tist, has pointed out, there can be no conflict between science and religion if the greatest minds in both fields clearly see that there is none. SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN EacH OTHER’s DEBT Mutual respect.—This is most fortunate, since the two major influences in the making of the modern *See Back to Wesley, Frank W. Collier. SCIENCE 201 world are Jesus and science. Christianity and science are in many ways alike. At bottom they have a similar aim. Both are out for truth. They differ somewhat in emphasis. Science uses life for the sake of truth. Religion uses truth for the sake of life. Yet both strive to usher humanity into larger, fuller life. Both live by faith.— Many are not aware of this, but that does not alter the fact that religion and sci- ence are akin in this respect. Science, like religion, is obliged to make assumptions which it cannot “prove” in the accepted sense of that word. Science believes that the human mind is able to discover truth. It be- lieves that what the mind observes really exists. In the nature of the case it cannot prove these facts. It believes that the basic character of the universe will be the same to-morrow as it was yesterday. Here too it walks by faith. So one might go on. Both science and religion are forms of knowledge. —Science is not “all mud,” and religion is not “all mist.” Science can bring you to the place where you can say, “I know.” So can religion! Of course the knowledge is not the same and the proof each requires differs. A man does not need to be a good man to be convinced of a chemical experiment. But religious knowledge requires spiritual preparation. It is con- ditioned by character. Only “the pure in heart see God.” The debt of science to religion.—Moreover, in many respects, science and religion are interdependent. Each has the other to thank for past and present favors. Christendom, in the darkest days of the Dark Ages, kept scholarship alive. We cannot be grateful enough to the men who in the oblivion of monasteries gave the best that was in them that learning might be preserved. Roger Bacon, who lived and labored in the thirteenth 202 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK century, was the forerunner of modern science. So devoted was he to science and so great was his love of God that not even seventeen years in prison, plus all his books condemned, could break that fine spirit of his. Would we be Christian enough to stand up under such treatment? In his Magnus Opus, written in eighteen months at the request of Pope Clement IV, he took his stand for experimental science. This monk, like Mendel later, put humanity on a new trail. When Protestantism came it provided the incentive for the very research which, on occasion, it sought to disown. The scientific method depends upon the reli- gious spirit! Scientists must be honest. They must be lovers of truth, else we could take no stock in the re- ports they make. But honesty is a spiritual quality. Scientists must believe in the worth-whileness of truth. They labor in the faith that truth is of ultimate and uni- versal significance. But that is, after all, a religious be- lief. Scientists must be fearless. “You need not be afraid,” said Lowell, “to strike a light; the universe is fireproof.’ But whence comes this belief except from religion? In other words, the scientific method is dependent for its success upon true character. The business of Christianity is to create that. The debt of religion to science.—But religion is also much obligated to science. It has materially aided Christianity. The search for facts by way of observa- tion, experiment, and reasoning has been applied to its history and institutions. It has given us a new Bible. It has humanized the church’s theology. It has revolu- tionized its educational methods. It has made vast contributions to the spread of the faith. The printing press and radio now carry their messages everywhere. His mind purged of every ulterior motive, in the hope that thus he might be an impartial medium for truth, SCIENCE 203 the scientist has been an object lesson to the religious investigator. Each has served the other. ScIENCE AND RELIGION BoTH IN THE SERVICE OF GoD Mutual service.—Each must serve the other. Sci- ence, without religion, easily becomes a curse; reli- gion, without science, easily becomes foolish. Science must be saved from presumption. Just now science is suffering from overpopularity. Too many folks bow down to it. They take its every word for final truth. It is difficult for scientists to keep a level head with all the deference that is being paid them. But the best of them are alive to this danger. They have never said that science knows all that is known, or that it is the only channel through which knowledge can come. Re- ligion can help scientists to keep their motives pure and their spirits humble. Religion, on the other hand, must be made, and must be, intelligent. It cannot get on without the scientific method. Here are two voices out of the sev- enteenth century. Doctor Lightfoot, of Cambridge University, then made the statement that “heaven and earth, center and circumference, were created all to- gether, in the same instant. . . . This work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B. C., at nine o’clock in the morning.” That is the sort of foolishness Christianity came to, in the absence of the scientific method! But even that far back voices were lifted for a more intelligent view of things. Joseph Glanvill wrote: “There is not any- thing that I know of which hath done more mischief to religion than the disparaging of reason, for hereby the very foundations of Christian faith have been undermined. If reason must not be heard, the being of God and the authority of Scripture can neither be 204 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK proved nor defended; and so our faith drops to the ground like a house that hath no foundations.” “Elect interpreters.”,—The service Christians can render in our day, therefore, is not simply to convince people of the interrelation of science and Christianity, but also to interpret science religiously. We must understand, and help others to understand, what Alfred Noyes voiced for us in his lines: “What is all science then But pure religion, seeking everywhere The true commandments, and through many forms The eternal power that binds all worlds in one? It is man’s age-long struggle to draw near His Maker, learn his thoughts, discern his law.’’? Once again, let us see how far we have come. We have seen that Christianity has been a civilizing power, and that it has given us the most civilizing Book. It has glorified art. It has led us into truth. No one has done more for goodness, beauty, and truth than Jesus Christ. Let us, then, be deeply grateful for the culture he has inspired. For Discussion 1. Let someone look up and tell the story of the fight the church made on the great astronomers. 2. Why has the church been so reticent about accepting scientific results? Was there any value in this con- servatism ? 3. What would have happened to science had Chris- tianity not come? 4. What would have happened to Christianity had there been no modern science? 5. Does the scientific viewpoint ever make for irrever- ence? * Alfred Noyes, “Watchers of the Sky.” Reprinted by permis- sion of Frederick A. Stokes Company, publishers. SCIENCE 205 6. It is often said that our spiritual progress has failed to keep pace with our advancement in material things. Are these two far apart? How can the one catch up to the other? When? SUGGESTED READINGS Dinsmore, C. A., Religious Certitude in an Age of Science. Pupin, Michael, From Immigrant to Inventor. Brewster, E. T., The Understanding of Religion. Thomson, J. Arthur, Science and Religion. ny Cie vs qirt.! nM aay ma iy ix .y By i : Linei inate: jake’ VP) Wed, a ne hae ie Live 1! 7 Cot leg iin aye as sha wea Joint ih fi t a+ x Fy ATR AO: Brendel aay et A yaaa i NBN wv at bh en VN BY th sain h Aa ane £ biiy! ial Ai 44 Weve fe ad iy ” Phe 0 | Yim © cub kai Lod aN" Fahiae PART VI CHRISTIANITY AT WORK FOR LIBERTY “Where are you going, Great-Heart?” “To cleanse the earth of noisome things; To draw from life its poison-stings ; To give free play to Freedom’s wings.” “Then God go with you, Great-Heart!’? —John Oxenham. *Reprinted from The Vision Splendid, by permission of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. tate Je “= Eat ps: y" me vA ge as Be A as on sine: \ ie 7 fe th wtih J 384 M A a ERE: 3 RAIA’ oi , Pat 8; ite copaibag b\\e sah ait ei nf or Abani’s WH Wy Here agile dh nf ra ifs seh Sait ek | Hasina ay sie: AM Fase) } : Ce i ue ht 44 ert seem) daly! ane she iis y Sie sity, pheceakee ie a waht pli south bial a . oy & PRIME want wares wal ON ay Lae dy hi Assad } dae eh; Bas ye ay Cae ee ‘mk: boise , Je CHAPTER XXII FREEDOM A SoutH AMERICAN government some years ago charged a certain denomination with fostering revo- lution. Investigation showed that in its work this church had been most careful to avoid revolutionary references. And yet the church had to concede a basis in fact for the charge. For once the gospel is preached, new ideas and ideals are sure to come. The gospel sets men free. One such experience of free- dom develops a taste for more. THE PowER OF CHRIST’S IDEAS The sword of the spirit.—The influence of Jesus on human liberty may be seen all along the line. This is the more remarkable when you remember that Jesus never had much to say about the political situation in his day. It was the talk of the town and of every countryside. Jews were all and always ready to dis- cuss it. They were not in agreement as to how best they might get from under the Roman yoke. Here they differed radically. But the proposals of Jesus were most outlandish of all. They were not merely intended for their political plight, they were meant by him to apply everywhere and all the time. Briefly stated, they were two: Truth will make you free, and love brings liberty. Two propositions.—Consider first the first. The truth he proclaimed all the while was the value God sets on the soul. He felt sure that this truth was able to set men free. The Jews did not perceive the power of 209 210 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK his idea. Had they not “Abraham to father,” and had they not always been mighty in the truth? Yet when had truth ever served to free them from tyranny? Then there was the second proposal. He came with the advocacy of unyielding good will. He said that love was the supreme solvent of all ills. And they said: “How preposterous! Fancy opposing your op- pressors by service and by love!’ His advice did not sit well with the patriots. Once people fully grasped what was in his mind, many Jews “walked no more with him.” They began to inquire if it could possibly be that any of the rulers of the people believed what he taught. It was a relief to learn that not one was to be found. Only a few fisherfolk, and they from Gallilee! These Jews could not see how considerate- ness could effect more freedom than could conflict. Not any too many of us see that now. Who is to blame?—We are inclined to be hard on the people who failed to get Christ’s message in the days of his flesh. But they had more reason for fail- ure than we, for they did not have the concurrent tes- timony of centuries. No one had ever traced for them the power of a single idea to change the behavior of nations in a brief space of time. But that has been done for us. Many a red-blooded Jew doubtless felt that Christ’s teachings made for cowardice. Judas the Maccabean was the Pershing of the Jews. He had taken to the sword to set his people free. And he had made a good job of it even if it did not last. Patriot- ism was gauged by one’s willingness to fight for free- dom. Christ’s proposal of good will seemed just the opposite. Let us not think too harshly of those Jews of old. They had no way of checking up on the pro- posals of Jesus. There was no evidence in, that they could be made to work. FREEDOM | 2I1 “Tender as the brave are only.’—But for us there is an abundance of evidence. We can go by his- tory. The propositions of Jesus did not make men backbone-less. Large numbers of them have “not counted their lives dear unto themselves for the excel- lencies of Christ.” Christian men have gathered the spears to their bosoms that their fellows might be free. It may be said of many a man that, not only out of love for his nation, but out of love of love, he has heard the soundless call of an unseen Leader and received invisible power to achieve the impossible. Christ has smitten cowardice hip and thigh! Under his leadership men have set men free. Procress THRouGH Curist’s IDEAS The appeal to truth.—And the truth has done just this. That truth for long was hidden. For centuries Christianity had little chance in Christendom. Autoc- racy was the accepted institution: monarchs were thought to reign by the will of God, and the Pope asserted authority over all. It took time before, bit by bit, men traced the meaning of Christ’s message and then applied it to governments and the governed. Let us note a few stages in its application. For Europe the eleventh and twelfth centuries marked the era of the town. Kings gladly encouraged their rise, for in them they saw two things their hearts desired. Cities were exceptionally good channels for revenue, and the average king never had quite enough. Besides, they counteracted the power of the feudal lords. It was a toss-up as to which of these two the rulers wanted the more. So towns could not come fast enough to suit their highnesses. But kings lived to rue the day they had given them countenance. For as towns grew, the citizens learned the courage and 212 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK strength of numbers. They combined counsel and resources; and so made effective demands for better conditions from those in power. Many a royal head- ache preceded a royal charter by which some city se- cured rights and privileges from the crown. But just how did these townsmen do it? They did it by way. of the guilds. These appear to have been much like the mutual benefit lodges one finds in all the land. They had practical aims, based upon religious principles. Merchant and craft guilds were often at loggerheads and their strife was bitter and long; in a way it is with us still. But about them clustered this incessant de- mand for freedom. In these guilds religion played a prominent, and sometimes dominant part. It was Christian associations that strove to set men free. They held out for that respect and that recognition of men Jesus had championed so. They not only held out for it; they stood up for it. We see so clearly the folly of war that we easily forget how valiantly men fought to set us free. We must not withhold from them the credit which is their due. They knew of no better way, and had no other choice, than that of force. It is ours to find and use a higher method to enhance freedom. But the contribution they made should be kept in mind. The appeal to love.—To considerateness, good will, and the desire to serve, one must likewise trace our civil liberties. Has it ever dawned on you that free- dom has been gained for us less by men who fought it out than by men who thought it out? The thinker has, in truth, come to sit on the throne of the world. You would not expect, of course, that every one of these thinkers had thought things clean through; there was too much in their training, habits, and en- vironment to make that possible. Yet if they thought FREEDOM 213 in the shadows, they were those of the light of love. There was the Magna Charta, “the Bible of human liberties.” How did it come about? Based on earlier documents, but with liberty written large, it was granted ‘by an unwilling king in the thirteenth century when a body of noblemen, headed by an archbishop, made demand for it. Grant that it was not drafted to favor common folks. Yet the men who composed it wrought better than they knew. What is of interest to us here is that at the center of this monumental documental event two outstanding Christians stood. Not perfect men were these two, but well in advance of their day in their appreciation of the genius of Chris- tianity. They were Stephen Langton, the archbishop already referred to, and Simon de Montfort, whose life had been molded by two great Franciscan friars. Makers of freedom.—If you say that this occur- rence savored at least as much of force as it did of thought, consider that thus far we have been viewing the scaffolding. Look at the structure now! See what a line of great thinkers have labored at liberty. Begin with Thomas Aquinas; he is worth beginning with. He insisted that the kings existed only for the good of the governed. He broke the ice for Marsiglio of Padua, who issued a clarion call for “government with the consent of the governed.” Then Erasmus appeared, with his relentless taunts at “kings, scarcely men, called divine.” These all were Christian men. Their ideals of freedom were fashioned after Christ. Their voices have gone out to all the earth. Later on came Hooker, proposing that substance be given to Marsiglio’s dream. Then the Reformation came, with its plea for spiritual freedom, and Luther’s splendid assertion that men are meant to be free. Then came Calvin and Geneva—you should know the story of 214 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK them—for every city hall in the world ought to be in the prophetic succession of his Town Hall there. Then a venerable line of philosophers, who were doing their political thinking in the spirit of Christ. Other names might be recited and other countries touched upon. One might tell of brave little Holland and its silent Prince who was a prince of God, and how the great sea came to be the ally of his great heart in bringing liberty to the people he loved; or of Gustavus Adolphus, “the saviour of Protestantism,” who died at thirty-eight, surrounded by his enemies, looking them in the face and saying, “I am the King of Sweden, who do seal the religion and liberty of the German nation with my blood.” But the world, for the most part, has been and still is looking to the English-speaking peoples for guidance in liberty. And to none more than to these United States. Whence came our liberty? It rooted back in the Magna Charta and the Reformation ideals. But it came to us through the Pilgrims: “They were rude men, unlovely, yes, but great, Who prayed about the cradle of our state; Small room for light or sentimental strains In those lean men with empires in their brains; Who pitched a state as other men pitch tents, And led the march of time to great events.” The imprint of the Christ is. upon our institutions. SHALL WeE Apopt CHRIST’s PROGRAM ? Freedom still to be achieved.—It is said that a famous man resolved in youth that he would some day write the history of liberty. But he never wrote it, because he discovered that liberty was only as yet being made history. And that is the truth of the matter : | | ( | FREEDOM 215 to-day. Account for it as you will, the Christian ideals for freedom have been hard to learn. Still much of our boasted liberty is such only in name. As these lines are being written the issue of free speech is before the public again, and not for the last time at that. Con- stitutional guarantees are still denied citizens. There are “metes and bounds” to our rights, as Bishop Lu- ther B. Wilson has pointed out; yet, as he puts it, we must “insist that those in conspicuous leadership respect in word and in act the Constitution under which they live and labor .. for, after all, the metes and bounds have their full and proper meaning only when our lead- ers by precept and example lead aright, and when the administration of governmental authority is in the hands of those fitted by education, discernment, and character to represent us at our best.” It is necessary that we shall see to it that our Constitution, by way of amendment, shall “go on to perfection.” But it is even more important that the freedom, so guaranteed, shall be the portion of all, from the least even unto the greatest, irrespective of social standing, political power, color, race, or creed. Tasks ahead.—A whole chapter might well have been written about those women who, conscious of the Spirit of Christ, spared neither time nor toil nor treas- ure to make woman politically free. Some of them are referred to elsewhere in this book. But what is significant for the task yet confronting Christians is that, the world around, women generally are not only denied the franchise but do not have the same rights and freedom given men. And it is likewise to be re- membered that in large sections of the world the peo- ple at large have no such rights to liberty as we deem commonplace. The whole world is athrill with the passion for liberty. How shall it be achieved? By 216 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK blood and brutality, or by considerateness, good will, and truth? In the final analysis, it is up to Christen- dom to say which it shall be. “Ts true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathern hearts, forget That we owe mankind a debt? No! true freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!” For Discussion 1. Where does liberty end and where does license begin? What is “personal” liberty? 2. Can anarchy be liberty? 3. Does civil or political liberty exist in non-Christian lands? Can it? 4. Which is more Christian, to permit people to vote when they reach a certain age or to base that right on intelligence and character? 5. Can you think of any proposal to amend the federal Constitution by which liberty might be furthered in our land? 6. What degree of freedom should be given “backward” races or nations? How might they be fully set free? SUGGESTED: READINGS Lowell, James Russell, “The Present Crisis.” Carlyle, A. J., The Christian Church and Liberty. Smith, George B., The Principles of Christian Living, Chap. XVII. CHAPTER XXIII RELIGIOUS LIBERTY THE story of religious intolerance would have to take account of virtually all the world’s religions. It is impossible to attempt this here. Therefore this chapter deals only with the Christian era. Once more we shall note that Christianity cured an evil of Chris- tendom. Or, speaking more precisely, once more we shall note that Christianity is in process of curing this evil. How INTOLERANCE CAME ABOUT Men were long denied the right to worship God as conscience dictates. Those who recall the New Testa- ment’s enthusiasm for liberty may think this strange. But the reasons are clear why the trouble came. Man’s inhumanity to man.—In an argument, as you have probably observed, you are always kindly and logically right, while the man you argue with is usually willfully and stubbornly wrong. Men feel intensely about their opinions. They try to make their beliefs dominant. This is one reason why they write creeds. This is one outstanding reason why they de- fend them. It was ever thus. Men who stood up for their opinions set them down on paper and then held out against all who differed from them. The man who believes that his faith was once for all delivered to the saints of which he is one brooks no interference. If you contradict his belief, you commit sacrilege. He has the profound conviction that your failure to agree with him entitles you to hell. And, just to make sure 217 218 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK that nothing slips up in the future life, he proceeds to provide you right here with all of it he can! As Vol- taire once put it, ““We have butchered one another on account of a sentence or a paragraph!” Putting chains on thought.—But there were other reasons for intolerance. There were political ones. So long as Paul was the chief defender of Christian- ity, men were able to boast that “where the spirit is, there is liberty.””’ But when Constantine took Chris- tianity into his charge he made away both with the spirit of liberty and the liberty of the spirit. We do not recall often enough that with Constantine Chris- tianity suffered an eclipse that was all but the end of it. It is one of the unlisted miracles that Christianity stood the shock. Constantine utilized Christianity to keep his empire together. For him the “catholic” church was a po- litical instrument. It was to be the one bond to keep his empire one. This meant, of course, that the bond itself had to be kept intact. Only if the church was a unit could it serve to preserve the unity of the empire. Just at this juncture the emperor met his Waterloo. When he tried to force all the church into uniformity he found himself with more on his hands than ever he bargained for. Still, his attempt succeeded in estab- lishing a pernicious viewpoint. It came to be reasoned that to question the faith was to weaken the bond, and to weaken the bond was to endanger the state. Hence a heretic was also a traitor. You can imagine how the stock of orthodoxy soared under such a view. Regu- larity of belief meant safety and standing and respect- ability. You were a trouble-maker if you questioned the faith, and trouble a-plenty was made for you. The church crushes the faith.—Then there were ecclesiastical reasons. H. G. Wells put it succinctly: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 219 “The gory forefinger of the Etruscan Pontifex Maxi- mus emphasized the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; the mental complexity of the Alexandrian Greek en- tangled them. In the jangle of these incompatibles the church had become dogmatic. In despair of other solutions to its intellectual discords it had resorted to arbitrary authority. Its priests and bishops were more and more men molded to creeds and dogmas and set procedures; by the time they became cardinals or Popes they were usually oldish men, habituated to a political struggle for immediate ends and no longer capable of world-wide views. They no longer wanted to see the kingdom of God established in the hearts of men—they had forgotten about that; they wanted to see the power of the church, which was their own power, dominating men. They were prepared to bar- gain even with the hates and fears and lusts in men’s hearts to insure that power. And it was just because many of them doubted secretly of the entire soundness of their vast and elaborate fabric that they would brook no discussion of it. They were intolerant of questions of dissent, not because they were sure of their faith, but because they were not.’’? Greed inhibits Christianity Doubtless there were also economic reasons. “The masters, lords, and rul- ers of all lands” did not care to have their comfort or power interfered with. Those who have had control of things have had their share of stupidity. But they seem always to have had an inkling of the fact that “the thinker sits upon the throne of the world.” They seemed to surmise that there is no telling what will happen in case a thinker is let loose. They have been afraid of him. They have done what they could to *H. G. Wells, The Outline of History. Reprinted by B permis- sion of The Macmillan Company. 220 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK keep his ranks thin—likewise lean. They safeguarded all the approaches, and religion was one of these. They wanted it kept safe. The best way to keep it safe was to keep it “sound.” They were always a deal more afraid of free thinking than of free-thinkers. Free- thinkers had no use for religion. But free thinking led to its use in decidedly unpleasant ways for the folks in power. So it came that for centuries religious liberty, as we understand it to-day, was unheard of. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM Freemen.—But men are bound to think, and, as Jesus put it, to think in their hearts. “Opinion travel- eth the world without passport.” You cannot bar ideas from making their way among men. Sooner or later, among those who think, some will express their thoughts in no uncertain language. They are in the grip of the conviction that “They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think.” Savonarola and Huss are two of the many we honor for refusing to submit to doctrines to which they could not subscribe. When the judge read Savonarola out of the Church of Rome in the public square of Flor- ence, he said, “I excommunicate you from the church militant and triumphant.” And Savonarola answered, “Militant but not triumphant!’ Huss, with the wood that was to burn him piled about him, calmly faced his persecutors with the words: “For the truth of this gospel I am willing to die.” What good is fire to quench a spirit such as this? RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 221 “To sin by silence when we should protest Makes cowards out of men. The human race Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised Against injustice, ignorance, and lust The Inquisition yet would save the law, And guillotines decide our least disputes, The few who dare must speak, and speak again, To right the wrongs of many.” The Inquisition.—But the church was committed to the folly of force. Hence its history is stained by the blot of the Inquisition, officially founded in 1233 and intrusted to the Dominicans. Originally the church was opposed to torture. For a long time the church permitted no confessions extorted by that means. But Pope Innocent IV, in 1252, by the “Bull” Ad extur- panda announced that it could be used to discover heresy, and Urban IV later backed him up in this. The Inquisition had been started under Gregory IX, who had been Pope prior to either of these, but they gave it the impetus that made its task effective. Judges were chosen chiefly from the Dominican order, who had it strictly in charge to discover heresy. Court was conducted in secret, and the defendant was denied either adviser or witnesses. Not even the names of his accusers were given the prisoner. Much less was he allowed to face them before the judges. The only concession made him was that he could name any he knew to harbor ill will against him. To such as ap- peared to lie or to those who proved obdurate, tor- ture was applied by lay officials. By the law of the church torture could be used only once in each case. Bright minds soon found a way of getting around this rule. They decreed that torture “might be contin- ued.” It often was, with astounding heartlessness. Black-haired priests going into the torture chamber to 222 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK secure the recantation of disapproved beliefs are said to have come out white-haired with the horror of the performance. Incidentally, “there was never a case of acquittal pure and simple.” Penalties, fastings, pilgrimages, scourgings, the wearing of tokens of dis- grace, fines, confiscation of goods (very popular, be- cause the spoils were shared with the lay officials), all forms of imprisonment and various forms of death —these were meted out by the judges as they deemed fitting in each case. And for all this they had scrip- tural authority in the words: “Compel them to come in.” They thought they did God service! Wholesale slaughter.—Often the issue of religious freedom was joined with some form of struggle against tyranny or oppression. In such cases religious hatred made the conflict the more bitter. Alva, while at his abominable work in Holland, wrote his master, Philip Il: “If I take Alkmaar, I am resolved not to leave a single creature alive; the knife shall be put to every throat.” Most frightful of all single orgies of bloodshed was the massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1572, when the Huguenots, having been deceived into thinking themselves safe, were set upon in Paris by the forces of the crown. That day, and for weeks following, thousands were killed in the hope that thus Protestantism might be wiped out in France. In the reign of Charles I] of England more than eight thousand died in confinement as a penalty for their faith. Protestants have been persecuted by Catholics. But so have Catholics by Protestants, and Jews by both! Even the various divisions of Protestantism have been at each other’s throats. No more pernicious perversion of the message and method of Jesus is to be found in the annals of the church named with his name. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 223 How THE STRUGGLE Was Won Infiuence of the reformers.—Luther’s “right of private judgment” really entailed religious liberty. When he took his stand for the unrestricted perusal of the Bible, “the Bible in the hands of the laity,” he gave a momentum to the movement for religious liberty such as no one had given it before. Upon the broad platform of “the right of private judgments” all sects and parties could take their stand. It did result in a great diversity of opinion. But it also resulted in that far greater thing—freedom! Calvin, too, made his mistakes. Not all of his apologists together—and he has had a lot of them— have been able to remove the stain of his high-handed heartlessness in ordering Servetus killed. Yet it remained for John Calvin, “the only international re- former,” to make religious liberty stand forth as a thing to be prized. Calvinism was what Protestantism at its best always is—democracy in religion. Calvin went about it in thorough fashion. He contended for a democratic church. He denounced the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church on the ground that “church officials, according to the New Testament, en- tered upon their charges, not by the word of an eccle- siastical overlord, but with the consent of those they served.” In addition, he affirmed that adequate knowl- edge of God came, neither from Popes nor church councils, but from the Scriptures. From his telling blows the papacy has not recovered, nor is it going to. William Penn felt that “no man nor number of men upon earth hath power or authority to rule over men’s consciences in religious matters.” Roger Williams held that ‘‘all men may walk as their consciences per- suade, every one in the name of his God.” And John 224 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Locke wrote that “true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God.”’ Other voices were lifted in behalf of liberty. That men to-day can hold such religious beliefs as they think right, none daring to molest them or to make them afraid, must be attributed in large measure to the courage and vision of the Reformers. As time went on their opinions were translated into legislation in the various Protestant countries. In some parts of the world, notably Peru, the issue is immensely alive, and is calling forth a heroism full worthy of our deep- est admiration. The Anabaptists were first among moderns to demand religious liberty for all. In our own country religious toleratiom was first offered in Roman Catholic Maryland, but the Baptists in Rhode Island were the first to champion complete religious liberty. Other voices.—The toleration of differing opinions has had distinguished advocacy. John Robinson, father of Puritanism in New England, wrote: “It is no property of religion to compel to religion what ought to be taken up freely; no man is forced by Christians against his will, seeing that he that wants faith and devotion is unserviceable to God, and that God . . . would not be worshiped of the unwilling, . and, lastly, considering that neither God is pleased with unwilling worshipers, nor Christian so- cieties bettered, nor the persons themselves.” From such rugged common sense we are not likely again to escape. Men like Wesley did much to destroy what Silvester Horne called ‘“‘the most fatal of the church’s dreams’—uniformity of opinion. Speaking of the societies he was establishing, Wesley took pains to point out one circumstance peculiar to them: “They RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 228 do not impose, in order to their admission, any opin- ions whatever. ... They think and let think. One condition, and one only, is required—a real desire to save their soul. Where this is, it is enough; they desire no more: they lay stress upon nothing else: they ask only, “Is thy heart herein as my raathe If it be, give me thy hand.’ ” Present dangers.—It would be folly to suppose that all danger to religious liberty is past. There is the old danger from the church that never tolerates religious liberty except where it cannot help itself. There is the new one from that type of so-called ortho- doxy that has been widely heralded as “fundamental- ism.” Such orthodoxy, as one man has brilliantly put it, “is like alcohol—it kills every living thing, and preserves every dead one.” “Modernism” is not im- mune. Its adherents can be and some of them are as intolerant and dogmatic as the most extreme “Funda- mentalist.” Against all such intolerance, Christians resolutely set themselves. Truth must win upon its own merits, not through force or through outside authority. As Dean Inge has said, “Christianity is essentially a struggle for an independent spiritual life, and it can only exert its true influence in the world when it real- izes that spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and when it stands upon its own foundations without those extraneous supports which begin by strengthening a religion and end by strangling it.’’” “How foolish, then, you will agree Are those who think that all must see The world alike, or those who scorn Another who, perchance, was born *From The Philosophy of Plotinus. Longmans, Green & Co. Used by permission, 226 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Where, in a different dream than theirs, What they called Sin to him were prayers?’”? For Discussion 1. Define religious liberty. Describe it. 2. Does it make any difference what a man believes? Why? 3. Discuss the alleged intolerance of the Knights of Columbus and the Ku Klux Klan. 4. Is religious liberty still curtailed for political, eccle- siastical, or economic reasons? To what extent? 5. Do you think the Roman Catholic would ever again attempt anything like the Inquisition? Would Protestants persecute folks for religious beliefs? 6. Does respect for religious liberty mean that our religious preferences should play no part in the exer- cise of the franchise? SUGGESTED READINGS Crooker, Joseph H., The Winning of Religious Liberty. Versteeg, J. M., Christ and the Problems of Youth, Chap. Wi . Joseph, Oscar L., Freedom and Advance. *The Collected Poems of Alfred Noyes. Reprinted by per- mission of Frederick A. Stokes Company. CHAPTER XXIV DEMOCRACY PROFESSOR CONKLIN tells us that “the past evolu- tion of man has occurred almost entirely without con- scious human guidance; but with the appearance of intellect, the capacity of profiting by experience, a new and great opportunity and responsibility has been given man of directing rationally and ethically his future evolution.”?. Every indication is that the race both intends and tends to direct its future evolution by means of democracy. Tue Mission oF DEMOCRACY Christ and democracy.—Democracy appears to be in the order of things. The world cannot get on with- out it. Men have long dimly perceived what we now see more clearly, that if we wish to live at all on this earth, we shall have to learn how to live together. To do this we must learn to appreciate and cooperate— two items that go far toward making democracy in- evitable. Clearly, then, democracy did not originate with Christianity. It was here before that came. Greece and Rome knew it before Jesus was born, but not in its present form, nor with its present meaning. For modern democracy, however, Christianity shoulders much of the responsibility. Jesus has been called the world’s Great Democrat. *The Direction of Human Evolution. Reprinted by permis- sion of Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 227 228 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK This does not allude to any political preference of his. It refers to how he lived and what he taught. He be- lieved himself one sent of God, one in whom God was; “Tt and my Father are one’; yet he made no false pre- tensions to superiority, but was in constant and sym- pathetic touch with the people, and consorted even with the outcast and the sinner. He could not look at a crowd without wanting to befriend it. And he was eager and alert to give those he met a helping hand. He believed in the oneness of folks: “One is your Father, and all ye are brethren.” He taught that his heavenly Father made the sun to shine on the just and unjust alike. An outstanding scholar, not par- ticularly partial to evangelical Christianity, once con- fined his studies to the “synoptic”? Gospels, and con- cluded that Jesus taught “consideration of community good as a deciding factor in conduct, the importance and significance of the individual, equality of opportunity, and a friendly attitude toward foreigners.”* These are precisely the items that enter into the making of modern democracy. Without these it would die. The title he has been given fits him very well. To Jesus democracy owes not only momentum but direction. What is democracy?—Democracy, just yet, is but little understood. There are still many who think of it chiefly in the political sense. To them it is the rule of the people; government in which the will of the ma- jority of qualified citizens rules, or in which the will of the whole people obtains in all important matters ; “gov- ernment with the consent of the governed.’ For them it has to do with means rather than with ends. Hence they make “democracy” synonymous with “republic.” They are thinking of a form of government. They have *A. W. Slaten, What Jesus Taught. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press, publishers. ——— DEMOCRACY 229 political machinery or political control in mind when they speak of democracy. Plato called democracy “‘the best form of bad government.” The average man has adopted that definition, minus the word “bad.” But, then, the average man is no Plato! Yet democracy is something more than common po- litical privileges. It is less a different government of people than a different estunate of them. In the Greek democracy this estimate was based on superiority—of birth or property holdings. In modern democracy the estimate is based on equality. It is, as the Italian patriot Mazzini expressed it, “the progress of all through all under the leading of the wisest and best.” Equality.—The modern democratic outlook comes to us from the Reformation. The Reformation taught the revolutionary idea that all believers are priests. This elevated all men to the same spiritual status. It did away with those distinctions in religion and the church which the Roman Catholic Church had taken such pains to make. “By making men equal in the highest things of faith, it opened up the new way for equality and fraternity in the lesser material things. Only now are we beginning to understand the demo- cratic impulse of the Reformation, which has so long been held back. We know that the common rights of all souls, the universal priesthood of believers, neces- sitated general, popular education. In settling the mat- ter of public education the Reformation, which cannot ‘ suffer illiterates, because it claims the right of everyone to read and search the Scriptures for himself, was the greatest aid to vital democracy in thought and life.’’$ The modern democratic movement began several centuries after the Reformation. It had its inception ‘J. W. A. Haas. Reprinted from The Lutheran by permis- sion. 230 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK in the French Revolution, which was anti-church rather than anti-Christian. Rousseau was its outstanding prophet. Yet what this eccentric genius really did was to raise the same cry of equality the Reformation had raised. But no one can say for sure with whom the slogan of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” originated. That they were all written deep in the message Jesus brought no unbiased student can doubt. The French Revolution which, as Carlyle saw it, came with “truth clad in hell-fire,’ uncovered more of the meaning of these words than had previously been commonly understood. Nor must the name of Rousseau, the ec- centric and turbulent thinker, be neglected when one tries to trace the development of democratic ideas. But American democracy is not indebted to the French rev- olution as much as some seek to make out. One must go to the Puritan rebellion, to the English revolution, and to our own, if one wishes to see more truly whence our democracy came. But no one must suppose that democracy is simply the product of successive revolutions. Long before any of these we have mentioned occurred, the Roman Catholic Church was practicing, if not preaching, democracy. One could find real democracy behind monastery doors. There all classes mingled in the spirit of brotherhood. And in the church itself there was not a little of it. During much of its history one did not need social standing, wealth, or lineage to enter the priesthood of the church, and to strive for the highest of its honors. It came to be a token of honor when a Pope had mounted from poverty to the greatest position in the church. Yet it cannot be said that many who, since the days of Rousseau, advocated democracy, thought it through. If our fathers had done so, the statement that “‘all men are born equal’ DEMOCRACY 231 would have been taken for poetry, never for prose. Yet théy were all after a massive truth. They were trying to express their reverence for humanity. For, as Eucken has said, the only thing that can give democ- racy meaning is “the conviction that humanity has spiritual relations, tuat each individual has a value for himself and for the whole because he is a part of a larger spiritual world.” THE CHALLENGE OF DEMOCRACY Equity.—It is one thing to assert equality and an- other thing to achieve it. Here lies one huge task. We must provide the equality we profess. It used to be said that what we need is equality of opportunity. But that was a poor way of putting the matter. What we want—and need—is equity of opportunity. Equal- ity of opportunity respects our likenesses, but not our differences. Equity of opportunity respects our dif- ferences as well as our likenesses. Possibilities for some are impossibilities for others. It is not fair to give the same opportunity to all. It is fair to give all the same opportunity. Democracy is equa-bility rather than equality in all the relations of life. Only ever- lasting justice can secure lasting prosperity. Democ- racy must bring adequate life to all. Hence Pasteur considered democracy “that order in the State in which every man has a chance to make the most of himself, and knows that he has the chance.” Jesus said he came to bring fullness of life. We can scarcely expect to be his followers unless we too strive to bring this. What are we doing about it? Difficulties in the way.—Those who attempt to se- cure equity of opportunity for all will not have easy sailing. So many things arise to bar the way to 232 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK success. Democracy is constantly up against the task of putting its own house in order. Democracy is always in danger of its popularity. Familiarity with its forms is likely to bring contempt for its spirit. It easily disintegrates into mob rule. “A crowd,” says Edward Dean Martin, “goes to its death fighting bogeys.’ With “crowd” he does not mean many bodies that are together but many minds that are alike. Public opinion is all too often crowd- opinion, assidiously fostered by political manipulators or representatives of class interests. People who are not up on a subject are easily wrought up about it. They are likely to do what Jupiter is said to have counseled his advocate to do, when with the other gods they were going to take part in a philosophical discussion: “Do not argue. They will beat you at argument. Curse and rail. That is your strong point.” In a democracy people have to be not only well-balanced but well-trained. Lip-praise! Democracy is therefore in constant danger of its demagogues. When they extol democ- racy you had better watch their step. You will usually find them lovers of slogans and catch-phrases and watchwords. They do not go very deeply into the meaning of them—for a good reason! If they did, it would be all up with them. Loud in their praises of a democracy that has not as yet molested their special interests, they have little or no use for the genuine article. People, in a democracy, cannot afford to give unquestioning acquiescence to great words and noble phrases, which all too easily become cheap claptrap, used to prevent the very thing it pretends. We should be zealously on guard against tawdry shibboleths. Democracy is in danger of its privileges. A true believer in democracy is willing and eager to share its — DEMOCRACY 233 responsibilities as well as its privileges. He can be counted on to share the burdens as well as the benefits of his government and of society. Democracy will go by default unless those who demand its rights also per- form its duties. “Blind leaders of the blind.”—Democracy is in danger of its leaders. They are likely to listen all too much to popular opinion and to mold their conduct to popular caprice. Bishop Quayle, in one of his famous lectures, used to say that a politician knows what the people want, a statesman knows what God wants. This is, of course, not a precise definition. But it suggests that a democracy is safe only when its politicians prac- tice statesmanship. This calls for real heroism and for no little martyrdom! Democracy is in danger of its followers. The mass of people is likely to be content with less than the best. It is not likely to wax enthusiastic over the more ad- vanced proposals of science or statecraft or education or religion. Many of its followers are conservatives. They cling to the old and suspect the new. Others among its followers are radicals, who mistake the newest for the best. Unless a democracy can develop on a large scale the scientific temper and method, it will fall upon its own sword. THE FuturE oF DEMOCRACY _ An ethical democracy.—From what has been said it will, we trust, be clear that but few are working at democracy, and that it has not thus far been very widely applied. What democracy needs is men and women who are willing to go through with it, lead where it may. For the implications of democracy are stupendous. They are sure to take us far. It is no mean task to 234 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK secure equity of opportunity for all. Democracy was stated to mean: “The progress of all through all under the leading of the wisest and best.” Consider a little what that means. “Going on to perfection.”’—If democracy is prog- ress, it is progress of democracy. There was a time when people said, “The king can do no wrong.” This habit is apparently a difficult one to dislodge, for there are those who assert it of democracy, or, rather, of their brand of it. People must be put on guard against the bland assumption that their type of democracy is infallible; that it cannot possibly be improved upon. Our fathers were not afflicted with any such conceit. They left room for improvement in the Constitution and made careful provision for its amendment. New experiments in democracy ought to be not only per- mitted but welcomed. Self-government is not neces- sarily good government; it is only a method by which we hope to procure it. Democracy is for man, not man for democracy.— “The progress of all through all’ means progress not only of democracy but im democracy. Emerson said that “the best political economy is the care and culture of man.” How much care do we take of men when the majority of them as yet have neither the means nor the time for culture? If the chief concern of democ- racy is people, no realm of common interest can be ex- empted from its application. Industry and religion and education will have to become increasingly demo- cratic. Economic despotism cannot survive in a democracy. The progress of all cannot take place until there is economic freedom. Industry now in- quires, “What sort of worker will this man be?” But the inquiry democracy will make of industry is, “What sort of man will this worker be?” John Dewey states DEMOCRACY © 235 that “a truly democratic society is one in which all share in useful service and all enjoy a worthy leisure.” So much for the care of man. As for his culture, we have only begun at that. In the United States only one out of every three graduate from grammar school, one out of every twenty complete a high-school education, and one out of every one hundred graduate from college. | The need for practical pilots.—“Under the leading of the wisest and best.’ Mazzini depended on “the wisest and best” for “the progress of all through all.” It is to Christians that democracy must look for its protection. ‘They are to see to it that it is kept pure; that it is saved from misrepresentation, misinterpreta- tion, abuse. They must show folks where it leads, what its implications are. They must incarnate and inculcate that reverence for personality characteristic alike of Christ and democracy. They must go to work in church and school and press and Legislature and drama and literature to impress people with the hu- manity, and hence Christianity, of equity of oppor- tunity for all. There is no finer piece of business to be done than to train people who live in a peel to live up to it. Democratic evangelists !—This leads to a further observation. It 1s also to “the wisest and best” that democracy must look for its projection. Indeed, we are less in need of people who can explain democracy than of those who have courage enough to apply it. To give substance to the belief that personality is always to be respected and to strive, in business, in pol- itics, in every realm, to secure equity of opportunity for all, is not easy. What makes it difficult is that most people shout for democracy until it steps on their toes, then they turn to rend it. It is but another way 2360 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK of putting this to say that “the wisest and best” have often been crucified. When it comes to this big busi- ness of getting democracy down out of the clouds and breathing life into it, we may well put up the sign: “None but heroes need apply.” What is your caliber? For Discussion 1. “Democracy,” said Woodrow Wilson, “is possible only among peoples of the highest and steadiest political habit.” Measured by this statement, will our democ- racy endure? 2. Is the Constitution of the United States thoroughly democratic? Is it Christian? 3. Are other modern democracies more Christian than ours? 4. Can our democracy exist without the public-school system? Does it need any other? 5. In what sense is Protestantism democracy in religion? 6. Does modern high-school or college life make young people democratic? What is it doing for you? SUGGESTED READINGS McConnell, Francis J., Democratic Christianity. Diefendorf, Dorr F., The Christian in Social Relation- ships, Chap. IX. CHAPTER XXV CITIZENSHIP Tuus far we have been thinking of “the freedom with which Christ doth set us free.” Something yet remains to be said as to the use of that freedom. For this freedom, according to Christ, is not simply some- thing to enjoy but something to employ. Our privi- leges are our opportunities. Nowhere is this view of freedom more necessary just now than in the realm of citizenship. PAGAN OR CHRISTIAN? The early Christians.—Time was when Paul was glad to boast that he was “a citizen of no mean city.” Time came when he openly rejoiced that his “‘citizen- ship’ was “in heaven.” With increasing intensity the early Christians came to share that view. One can readily understand why this should have been so. They were, for the most part, on the outs with the authorities. This was through no fault of their own; it was inevitable. Having embraced a religion other than the prevalent one, they found themselves in poor standing in the community and were made the butt of ridicule, were hated, and subjected to persecution. They could no longer give unquestioning obedience to the state. They went for final orders to a higher source. From the first this issue was for them clearly drawn. Peter and John, in the very beginning of the morning of the church, frankly asked the rulers of the people and of the church “whether it is right before 237 238 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK God to obey you rather than God.” It took courage to do that! Their question left the authorities non- plussed; they did not know what to make of it. And ever since this has been a question that simply would not down. In every age intrepid souls have put it to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Peter and John started something back there in Jerusalem. They forced the issue on all Christendom. It never will be settled until it is settled right. The hope beyond.—In that early day, as the oppo- sition of the state to the church increased, Christians lost more and more their relish for citizenship. What with death staring them so often in the face, the one thing left to them was the hope that beyond this life they might get to a commonwealth in which they at last might be free. The “better country” they desired was “a heavenly.” Like those spiritual giants of old, at remembrance of whom they took heart, they “con- fessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” They were sure that God would not be “ashamed to be called their God,’ and that he had “prepared for them a city,” of which “the Lamb is the light.” In its earliest manifestations Christianity gave little promise of furthering citizenship. The leaven at work.—And yet there was that in Christianity which would one day make citizenship sublime. Augustine clearly saw that, and in his City of God issued a clarion call for citizenship which, echoed from time to time, found its greatest expression in the Geneva Calvin made. Theoretically, at least, the church early set out to change the conception that the state is supreme. Actually, it must be confessed that most of us yet dance whenever the state “pipes unto us.” But progress has been made, not the least in the opinion the state now entertains of itself. Then for a CITIZENSHIP 239 long time the church held the place the state had once held. Jt claimed to be supreme, even over the state. It took a Reformation to make people see that Chris- tianity was greater and more authoritative than any church. It may take yet another Reformation to make people see that Christianity is more than creed. Yet the Christian conceptions of freedom and service have made and are making citizenship something more than the selfish enjoyment of the protection or benefits a country may afford, or the docile submission to “the powers that be.” CHRISTIAN CITIZENS Enter: the social gospel—We have already re- counted the achievement of Christianity in giving people a voice and a share in government. But citizen- ship has come to mean even more than that. At least Christian citizenship has. We now see that citizenship itself must be seen through Christian eyes; that its duties must be performed in the Christian spirit, and that Christian principles must be incorporated in all matters of public concern. This is in keeping with that extension of the gospel to all the affairs of life which has come to be known as the social gospel. Giving citizenship conscience.—When we talk of the social gospel we mean no new or strange gospel; it is simply the good news of Jesus applied to our social relations and embodied in our social institutions. Not everyone who names the name of Christ goes far enough in that name. There are still many who accept the life and teachings of Jesus for their personal guid- ance but are unwilling to trust his leadership for all of life. So Frederick II of Prussia feared that “the prince who remembers that he is a Christian is lost’ ; and Bernhardi taught that “Christian morality is per- 240 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK sonal and social, but can never become political.” But Christ taught one standard of conduct for any and all parts of life. Oliver Cromwell justly insisted that character is the first requisite for a public servant, and Grover Cleveland’s dictum holds good for all time: “A public office is a public trust.” Christian patriotism.—Here, then, a great task de- volves upon the church. It must clarify and sanctify public opinion; it must bring the spiritually indolent and the spiritually backward under conviction of state and community sin. It must Christianize patriotism. If you think this easy, try it out on some friend. No; first of all put in some work on yourself, for not any of us find it easy to get away from that exclusive in- terest in our own land, which in our hearts we know to be unchristian, and which makes idols out of our symbols and flag. It is not easy to reach the view Mazzini voiced: “Nationality is sacred to me because I see in it the instrument of labor for the good and progress of mankind.’ Yet one is not really Chris- tian until one is willing to say with William Watson: “Best they honor thee Who only honor in thee what is best.”2 We shall have to get rid of the idea that we have spoken the last word in good government; that ours is the most perfect form of government that can possi- bly be devised. We shall have to be on the lookout expectantly for even superior forms. We shall have to be on guard lest high-sounding phrases and rounds of patriotic applause be substituted by us for disin- terested citizenship. To quote Mazzini again, who, free-lance though he was, entertained the most Chris- *The Collected Poems of William Watson. Dodd, Mead & Co., publishers. Used by permission. CITIZENSHIP 241 tian of views concerning the state: “The end of pol- itics 1s to apply the moral life to the civil organization of a country.” Let any young friend of mine, there- fore, who is thinking seriously of going into politics (the only way to think of it) note that the end of pol- itics is neither his election nor his reelection, nor his enthronement as a popular hero as one proficient in all the lingo of narrow nationalism. Positive patriotism.—The church has felt called upon to do a lot of reforming, and there still remains a good bit for it to do. The country is under great debt to the church for such “meddling in politics.” So many noble people have glorified this company that one is loath to say even a word that might sound de- rogatory. But in reforming, defeats lie close to vic- tories. Reforming too often fails to be re-forming; too much emphasis is placed on getting rid of evil and not quite enough on substituting the good. The church must train men and women in positive patriotism. Law-observance should give Christians grave concern, but law-improvement should concern them even more. Not lower taxes, but better schools, should be consid- ered first. It is not evils, but righteousness, that must be stressed the more. Doinc Our Part The exercise of the franchise.—Christian citizen- ship calls us ali to consistent careers of community serv- ice. The exercise of the franchise is the most obvious part of this. There is no better way to play into the hands of the forces of evil than for Christian people to fail to vote in the primaries or on election days. We are to serve God with the ballot. Yet this is but one of the duties Christian citizenship requires. We are to clean up the city; and not infrequently that 242 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK means that we are to clean it out! It has been humor- ously said that “ ‘the wicked flee when no man pur- sueth’; but they make a little better time when the righteous get after them.” But to do this, and to effect the more positive good, the Church of Christ must present a united front. The amusement situation.—Commercialized amusements have a relentless way of tramping the high and holy under foot. Professionalism, commercial- ism, and “spectatoritus’’—the fact that most of us are simply lookers-on rather than participants—cast a blight upon the whole amusement realm. If Chris- tianity can set men free from the harmful elements in these three, it will effect a new liberation for us all. Christianity has had tussles with the amusement prob- lem heretofore. It will never be forgotten how Tele- machus jumped into the arena in protest against the brutality of gladiatorial combats, and how his death at the hands of the frenzied mob sickened both the emperor and the world of them. Yet many forms of amusement have not improved much with the years. The battle of Waterloo, it was said, was won on the playing fields of Eton. It is conceivable that Chris- tianity too shall win its crowning battle on the playing fields. At all events, every citizen can here lend a hand. Let us see to playgrounds and plays and play, in no censorious spirit, but as enthusiasts for “fullness of joy.” The newspapers.—The press needs the impact of Christian citizens, especially when it is in the hands of men who make no decent attempt to follow Jesus Christ. It too has had to reckon overmuch with the cash register. “Great is the suppress!” But here there is more of hope. While amusement purveyors have shown deep obstinacy in regard to their affairs, news- CITIZENSHIP 243 paper men have been, and still are, bravely facing the complex ethical problems which their craft involves. “Charity.”—In matters of public health, sanitation, living, and working conditions, citizens ought to be both interested and informed. These have been dis- cussed in other sections of this book. But in every city there are humane institutions which need to be maintained. Christianity has always majored in hu- mane and considerate treatment of the unfortunate and the unprivileged. The blind, the orphans, the aged, the deaf and dumb, the poor, even animals, have re- ceived of the grace of Christ. Look over the director- ates of the Associated Charities, Red Cross agencies, relief agencies, hospitals, or social settlements in your town, and see how generally they are composed of those who openly follow Jesus Christ. And when it comes to giving for humane and benevolent work, see what a large percentage of money comes from Christian folks. Yes, and see how these institutions and these movements had their inception in minds that thought like Christ’s. Surely, then, we, his new fol- lowers, will not fail him in these. Now you can understand why the New Testament is all the while saying that Christ sets men free. This is exactly what he has been doing. This is what he is doing still. His liberation has been spiritual as well as political By way of Jesus democracy has come. Those whom he sets truly free will not abuse freedom but will use it so that life will be brought to its best. All of which is proof that Jesus may justly be called “the liberator divine.” For Discussion 1. Should there be any special intellectual or educational 244 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK qualification for those who wish to be occupants of public offices ? 2. Should parties foster partisanship or patriotism? 3. Does youth tend to be radical and age conservative in public matters? Why? Is that always, or neces- sarily the case? 4. Should commercial amusements be kept closed Sun- days as a policy of good citizenship? If so, why? Which amusements do you deem permissible on that day? 5. What is wrong with gambling? with pugilism? 6. Is it Christian to expect the newspapers to be sup- ported by advertisers? SUGGESTED READINGS Mathews, Shailer, Patriotism and Religion. Robertson, A. T., The New Citizenship. Versteeg, John M., The Deeper Meaning of Stewardship, Chap. VIII. PART VII CHRISTIANITY AT WORK IN THE SOCIAL ORDER New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth, They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the des- perate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood- rusted key. —James Russell Lowell. pas ? die \ “wy ) nec Heit me Teste Me wa barat “Mia Le tite \ ; OF ae anneey 41 ae iy iy ‘ot eae a Ret | ite . oone r| e Ao Oe) % hie CHAPTER XXVI STEWARDSHIP Has it ever occurred to you how often Jesus dis- cussed money? There were few subjects, if any, he more frequently touched. PROPERTY VERSUS PERSONALITY What Jesus feared.—Jesus was concerned for the havoc money worked with life. He met many whose finer impulses “the deceitfulness of riches” had “choked.” Rich and poor had acquired the acquisitive habit. All the while these people were spiritual strad- dlers. They were trying to serve both God and Mam- mon; Jesus told them just how impossible that was. Then one time there came to him a splendid youth. “Jesus, looking upon him, loved him.” This youth wanted to be let in on the secret of lasting life. Jesus told him the secret. And the promising youth went away sorrowful! He could not endure to give up his goods for the sake of his good. Experiences such as these deeply saddened Jesus. He was forced to con- clude that the rich are but seldom able to enter the kingdom of God. Wealth, which to Jesus was a trust to be used for God, was to most of the men he met a means to selfish ends. Hence, when “teaching in parables,” he told of a foolish man who had “ample stores laid up,” only to find that when God came and called for his soul: “The soul that he got from God He had bartered clean away.” 247 248 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Jesus had plenty of occasion to see how heartless “money-making” often is. He pleaded with people to think the whole thing through. He felt that they were keeping their eyes entirely too close to their property; he besought them to look in more often on their souls; he implored them to consider the spiritual consequences of amassing and owning wealth. Seek the realm of God first, he advised them; then all other things will come right. Do not lay up treasures on earth; see how much you can store up in heaven. But his words fell on deaf ears. His early disciples heeded, as we learn from the book of Acts. They put their property at the disposal of the brotherhood. But even they soon fell to seeking wealth again. And the church, in the main, disregarded his teaching on property. The fear of the fathers——Yet many prophetic voices repeated the Master’s thoughts. It comes with something of a shock to us, who live in modern com- fort, in what blunt fashion these church fathers de- nounced and renounced wealth. Regard some of their utterances. Clement of Alexandria, who lived from 155 to 220, said: “Christ does not debar me from prop- erty. But do you see yourself overcome and over- thrown by it? Leave it, throw it away, hate, renounce, flee it!” He is glad for the man who is “not the slave of the things he possesses, and does not carry them about in his soul nor bind and circumscribe his life with them but is ever laboring at some good or divine work.” John Chrysostom, in the fourth century, said: ““They that are possessed of lands and reap the wealth that springs from the earth—what can be more unjust than these, for if anyone were to examine how they treat their wretched and toil-worn laborers, he will see them to be more cruel than savages. . . . When the earth STEWARDSHIP 249 yields and when it does not yield, they alike wear them out and grant them no indulgence, . . . and new kinds of usuries also do they devise, and not lawful, and this when he from whom it is exacted has a wife, is bringing up children, is a human being, and is filling their threshing floor and winepress by his own toil.” Basil similarly denounced people for their greed: “That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your posses- sion, to the barefooted; that gold which you have hid- den in the ground, to the needy.” To come to a more recent and even more picturesque name, hear these words from one of John Wesley’s sermons: “Lay not up, saith the Lord. If in spite of this you do, and will lay up money or goods, .. . if you will add house to house and field to field, why do you call yourself Christian? You do not obey Jesus Christ.” Yet the church got rich!—You might think from the words we have quoted that the church took their message to heart. Not so! Christendom has never yet been ready to take their advice to heart. The church found the seats of the mighty mighty comfortable! It took all the power and property which its dubious con- version of the Roman Empire insured, and then went after more. In time the church became the greatest landowner in Europe. The day came when one half of all the German lands belonged to it. As if not content with this wealth, it utilized other means for its ag- grandizement. Simony, the selling of bishoprics and ecclesiastical offices to the highest bidder, reeked to heaven in shame. When, despite this practice, the papal pockets went flat, a regiment of salesmen was dispatched to dispose of indulgences. This maneuver 250 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK was tried once too often; by it, the Pope came to grief, and Protestantism came to life. But here again the love of money worked its evil will. Luther owed his protection to the ruling and wealthy class. The monastic witness.—But what of those multi- tudes who went into monasteries and nunneries and who took among other vows, that of poverty? At first their testimony was undoubtedly impressive. Re- nouncing the pursuit of riches and worldly splendor, they witnessed with their lives that there is a greater aim than the pursuit of wealth. But the monastic orders also acquired vast properties. Now followed one of the most pathetic and heroic struggles in the church’s history. The Franciscans and Dominicans split. On the question of property-holding, Francis- cans who kept faith with their apostolic vow, were not only persecuted but even burned to death. Inter- ference with property rights has never been tenderly dealt with. PROPERTY AND PERSONALITY Why has wealth been sought?—Why has the lust for money had such hold on men? One answer to this question is that the desire for possession inheres in us all.. But that does not quite explain the inordinate desire. Men are willing to go great lengths for the sake of self-protection. They will seek more than their share so that they may be safe from want and from losing caste, as the poor as a class have done. Wealth brings freedom and prestige and puts power within reach. It makes higher learning possible and is the magic entrance to leisure and the arts. More- over, wealth can minister to one’s vanity or conceit. Men can ride roughshod over others when they know that these must look to them for bread. Do you won- STEWARDSHIP 251 der that people are so reluctant to surrender the search for wealth? Along comes stewardship !—Horace Bushnell said years ago that one more revival was needed before Christianity could conquer in the earth: the revival of stewardship. This revival has come. Like many an- other one, it appears in some quaint forms. But it is revolutionizing our conceptions of wealth, or, to change the word, our conceptions of property. Stewardship is the recognition and acknowledgment of God in all property. It is the employment of the wealth of the world for divine purposes. It is the putting of all things to Christian uses. Putting first things first.—Some future historian, writing long years from now, will probably say of us that we had our values all mixed. We have for cen- turies put secondary things first. We have called a man rich because he had much rather than because he was much. We have allowed property to lord it over life. We have spoken and acted as if cash, and not character, were the big business of the world. Stew- ardship comes along to adjust the order of things. In so doing it but echoes the Master, who felt that if a man owned ali the world, but lost out on his soul, the bargain he had struck was poor. He might have had all the protection for himself and his family that soul could wish; he might have been able to vent his pride to his heart’s content and he might have had lots of fun in the “game” of amassing wealth. But when all that was over, he was fit for nothing except the rubbish heap of the universe. He was no good. He had “spent his labor for that which satisfieth not.” PROPERTY FOR PERSONALITY The enrichment of wealth.—NHarsh as these words 252 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK may sound, they really are good news. For they assert afresh that the spiritual is supreme and hence su- premely important. When people make and use their money in Christian ways, and when all earth’s re- sources are put to Christian ends, wealth will be im- mensely enriched. No longer then will it take all it can out of people. It has ruthlessly crippled and dwarfed the lives of millions of folks. Now the spirit of Jesus comes to say, through stewardship, that this must not go on. Wealth henceforth must enrich the race. For, as Ruskin said in Unto This Last, “There is no wealth but life.” One-tenth for Christ?—There has been a deal of agitation, both in the church and out, to get people to give a tenth of their income to the church or to humane movements. Most of the churches have organized stewardship departments, though unfortunately these, for the most part, have been connected with the churches’ money-raising agencies. Stewardship is not essentially intended to fill the coffers of the church (even though it is sure to do so) ; it is intended to cor- rect the conscience of Christendom. Dr. J. M. M. Gray has warned that “the doctrine of stewardship must not be drawn for ecclesiastical profit.” It must be drawn for economic righteousness. Still, no one should lightly pass this proposition by. Experience has demonstrated that the tenth is a fairly good basis for the support of Christ’s cause. It is only when people attempt to hold you up at the point of a text, as they might at the point of a revolver, that you have a right to protest, and to protest out loud. The practice in itself is commendable. Young people do well to adopt it as a rule for life. Of course, the time may come when a tenth will not be enough. Some people earn, or at least, get so much more than others STEWARDSHIP 253 that far more than a tenth of their income should go to the church. Many people are realizing that the best use of money is its use for the best. You may be very sure that the outcome of our income should be the success of Christ’s cause. The conversion of our concepts.—But stewardship goes deeper than the support of the church. It is con- cerned with property even more than with the proceeds of property, with economic activity more than with church activity, with the social order more than with proportionate giving. Stewardship calls upon us to Christianize the function of property as well as the way we dispose of our share of wealth. Hence stew- ardship undertakes to Christianize ownership. It raises searching questions about the rules under which property should be held or acquired; it examines those appalling inequalities in personal possessions which have made our social order the un-Christian thing it is. There is no use blinking the fact. Stewardship bids fair to change our property ideas, and to reverse the pursuit and the uses of wealth. Help the good work along.—This is another one of these movements that has come into being since the historic study of the life of Jesus began. In it those who are spiritually alert hear his voice again. But do not suppose that on this point the world is ready to hear him out. The movement is rapidly growing, but the going will be hard. You ought to make up your mind whether for you for life it is to be God or Mam- mon. Christ seeks to set you free from the tyranny of things. Give Christ your vote. And do not leave the polls until all the votes are in! For Discussion 1. To how much property is a person entitled? 254 ~ CHRISTIANITY AT WORK 2. Is it Christian for one to become a millionaire? 3. Why are more crimes committed against property than against persons? 4. Is it Christian to permit the inheritance of large wealth? 5. How well could the church succeed if all its members tithed ? 6. Is there not new danger in the increasing wealth of the church? Should churches have endowments? Should colleges? SUGGESTED READINGS Calkins, Harvey R., 4 Man and His Money. Smith, G. Birney, The Principles of Christian Living, Chap. XV. Versteeg, John M., The secon Meamng of Stewardship, Chap. V. CHAPTER XXVII PEACE Many people have taken war for granted. Univer- sal peace did not occur to them. Peace, in their thought, was simply the condition that existed in the intervals between wars. War seemed to them to be in the very order of things, even though many of them stood ready to lament with Juvenal the fact that “The human herd, unbroken and untaught, For acorns first, and grassy coaches fought; With fists, and then with clubs maintained the fray Till, urged by hate, they found a quicker way, And forged pernicious arms, and learned the art to slay.” THE CHURCH’S NEw INTEREST IN WAR Must we have war?—To-day there are not quite so many who hold that humanity is compelled to put up with war. Increasing numbers of men and women believe that war does not need to exist. They feel that it can, and therefore should, be outlawed. They are making war on war. They are unwilling to echo the proverbial platitudes about the desirability of peace. They are insisting upon its possibility. Nor do they conceive of peace as simply the state of not being at war. They think of it as the condition that results from understanding, mutual respect, and cooperation among nations. Centuries prior to Christ, the Greeks taught that Eirene, the goddess of peace, was the mother of Pluto, the god of wealth. The point made by these Greeks is more commonly understood in the 255 256 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK world to-day. Peace and prosperity come hand in hand. The church and war.—The church has not always been a determined enemy of war. At first, when still it was close to the life of Jesus, the fact that his teach- ings and spirit were opposed to war was acknowledged by all. Professor Harnack believes that, up to the middle of the second century, “the possibility of the Christian as a soldier did not exist.”” The early church- men were one in teaching that no Christian had the right to go to war. Not a few preferred death to serv- ice in the army, and the reason for their choice was invariably, ““A Christian cannot fight.” It was a cur- rent saying that “Jesus, in disarming Peter, disarmed all soldiers.” Tertullian called Christians “priests of peace.” But after Constantine chose the cross as an emblem in war it was not long before the church went over bodily into the camp of the warriors. Its leaders began to glorify war; they sanctioned and blessed it. And when the church sought to uphold or extend its power, it did not hesitate to make or cause war. The crusades, the wars between Catholics and Protestants, the post-Reformation wars, go to prove that the church does not come with clean hands on this score. An occasional voice was raised in earnest protest, but the church gave no heed. So it comes that an eminent his- torian (though guilty of confusing his terms) felt im- pelled to state that “with the exception of Mohammed- anism, no other religion has done so much to produce war as was done by the religious teachers of Christen- dom during several centuries.” The church and peace.—It seems inconceivable that for sixteen centuries the church should have made no effort to achieve ‘‘peace on earth.” But the facts PEACE 257 are incontrovertible. The church did humanize many of the methods of war, and the ideals of chivalry it created have had a vast influence for good. By “the truce of God” the church, for a time, limited the periods in which blood might be shed. But the church did not set out to discourage the idea of war. Grotius, William Penn, Immanuel Kant, and others wrought definite plans for world peace; but the Christian Church did not come around to that. Of course there were reasons for this. Not even in the balmiest days of the Roman Catholic hierarchy was the church world-wide in scope or in program. It had all of humanity in mind only when it spoke of sin. It attempted to carry on major operations, not with the world at large, but with the world to come. It was other-worldly, rather than better-worldly, when it should have been both. The church did not see that its gospel must mean death to war. But the leaven was at work. Once the gospel of Jesus has “free course and is glorified” you may safely look for far-reaching results. Thus, when the Con- ference for the limitation of armaments was held in Washington, the representatives of the great Oriental powers were either outright Christians or had felt the impact of Christian education during their formative years. Hence the appeal could be made, and was made, on the basis of a common idealism. Ever since the carnage of the World War, the “will to peace” is gaining a strong hold on the church. In the course of the past few years, Protestant denomina- tions have vied with each other to express their ab- horrence of war, and their belief that now it ought to be done away with. The utterance of the largest Protestant communion shows the trend of the church: “Millions of our fellow men have died heroically in 258 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK ‘a war to end war.’ What they undertook must be finished by methods of peace. War is not inevitable. It is the supreme enemy of mankind. Its futility is beyond question. Its continuance is the suicide of civilization. We are determined to outlaw the whole war system.’”’ As never before, there is coming to the church the conviction Shakespeare voiced in King Lear: “Tf that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offenses, *T will come, Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep.” THE CyHurcH’s NEw INTERPRETATION OF WAR A great classification.—But just what is war? Sherwood Eddy’s definition puts the facts fairly and lucidly: “War is a means of attempting to settle inter- national or civil disputes by armed military forces, through the organized destruction of life and prop- erty, in which each side seeks to impose its will upon the other by force.”* A description like this, while of course not complete, should convince any one at a glance that war, as now waged, has nothing in com- mon with Christianity. War is, as Doctor Fosdick has said, “utterly and irremediably unchristian.” It means “everything that Jesus did not mean and means nothing that he did mean.” From the outset of his ministry Jesus refused to advance his cause by coercion. His daring proposal was that people make the way of love their way of life. He urged them to overcome evil with good. Not by any stretch of the imagination * Reprinted from The Abolition of War, by Kirby Page and Sherwood Eddy, by permission of the publishers, George H. Doran Company. PEACE 259 can you make of the Prince of Peace the patron saint of war. Theology of late has been at work on sin. It has convinced us that sin is a bigger thing than most of us as yet count for. It is social as well as individual. This truth is being emphasized increasingly by the church. Hence the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America calls war “the world’s chief col- lective sin.’ Theology has not always been at the service of mankind, but when it brands war as sin, it is doing its bit for the human race. This utter con- demnation of war by the Christian forces of the world is one of the greatest contributions Christianity could make toward securing a superior world. Faith in force.—But the church has more to do. It must break down the faith in force which people and nations still have. Few things Lloyd George has said will prove more memorable than these words of his: “What is the real problem in Europe to-day? I will tell you. ... Europe... still believes in force. Why? France says: ‘Alsace-Lorraine was torn from our side over fifty years ago. It was unjust; it was wrong; it was cruel; it was oppressive. Justice never gave it back to us. We had to lose one million four hundred thousand of our young men. . . . Force gave it back to us.” Poland! Poland says: ‘One hundred and fifty years ago our nationhood was destroyed. We were locked in the prison of great autocracies. We waited for Justice. We thought we could hear her passing footsteps, but they were simply the footsteps of our jailers outside. Force came at the end of one hundred and fifty years and unlocked the doors.’ The Russian peasant says to-day: ‘We never saw the light of liberty until the revolutionist came with his petard and blew our prison walls down!’ What does Ger- 260 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK many say? Germany says: ‘We trusted to Justice. We trusted in a treaty. We are broken; we are shat- tered. Why? Weare disarmed. We have no force. We cannot trust the word of great nations. Force is the only thing that rules in the world.’ “This is why Europe believes in force to-day. But unless you stamp out that conviction civilization is doomed on this earth. Unless you can succeed in con- vincing Europe that right in the end is dominant over force I do not know what is going to happen. Unless you stamp out that feeling there will be no more civ- ization on this earth!’ But this is exactly what the church is here to do. It is here to stamp out that feeling. If the church is un- able to eradicate this feeling that force is the ultimate and final factor in life, it will be out of the running, and it will deserve to be. The race is between pug- nacity and magnanimity. It is the business of the church, through its vast educational agencies and its devotional programs, to destroy all that horde of ideas that trails in the wake of the feeling that force alone can prevail. War must be shown to be wrong; wrong in the assumptions it makes, the methods it uses, and the results it gets. Once let people see that war unsettles everything and settles nothing, and de- pendence on force will go for good. Puttinc AN ENp To WAR Faith in law.—But there is a positive side to the task of Christianity in regard to war. To love peace is one thing, to make it is another and a far bigger thing; the thing it is ours to do. “What we seek,” said Woodrow Wilson, “is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed, and sustained by Os PEACE 261 the organized opinion of mankind.” Mr. Andrew Carnegie will be long remembered, not because he made millions, but because of his Christian convictions con- cerning war. His Hague Peace Palace, and the con- ferences set in motion there, while unable to stay di- rectly the onrushing madness of war, had a telling effect upon the thinking of men in all governments. The limitation of armaments by mutual agreement, courts of arbitration for international disputes, the getting together of the representatives of the nations for counsel and mutual advance, all have in them the promise of a better day for the world. But the outlawry of war will be no simple thing. We shall have to do hard thinking and patient teach- ing if we want to get totally rid of war. It will require experts. The whole problem of the security of the nations—even the weakest of them—will have to be faced. There will have to be a world-court which will be one in the full sense of that word, with actual laws to go by and definite rules of procedure. So complex are international relations that just the forming of the codes of law will require years of thought and effort: That it can be done there is no doubt. That it shall be done is the deep desire of all who, in Christ’s spirit, have the welfare of the race at heart. As President Coolidge has put it: “Univer- sal and assured peace, under the laws of nations, is an ideal to which all of us are devoted. . . . There is to-day a more definite and more widely entertained conception than ever before of the possibility to pre- vent war under an effective rule of law. This 1s the great advance. . . . It can hardly be doubted that the purpose and aspiration of human kind are definitely, intelligently, and insistently enlisted in the effort to make war an impossibility in this world.” 262 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Faith in love.—Christianity provides the spiritual and ethical motives for the overthrow of war and the establishment of permanent peace. “The empire is peace,” said Napoleon. But what of that? As Dr. George Elliott said, “so is a graveyard.” “They make a desolation and they call it peace,’ lamented an ancient seer. “They cry, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace,’’ we read elsewhere. “The peace of God shall stand guard over your hearts,’ Paul assured his followers. In the last anal- ysis, maintaining the peace is the task of religion. The peace of man depends on the peace of God. Only under the Fatherhood of God can we have the brother- hood of man. Every person, therefore, who follows Christ into his intimate love of the heavenly Father, advances the cause of universal peace. It was an in- sight deeper than vouchsafed ordinary mortals that made Jesus say: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” For Discussion Can war ever be done away with? Is war inevitable? 2. Was the World War “a war to end war’? If so, why? If not, why not? 3. What is the difference between struggle and war? 4. When does patriotism breed war? When does it aid peace? 5. What is the meaning of “pacifism”? Can a pacifist be a Christian? Must one be pacifist to be Chris- tian? 6. What can an individual church do to outlaw war? What can you do? p= SUGGESTED READINGS Page, Kirby, and Eddy, Sherwood, The Abolition of War. Bower, L. F., The Economic Waste of Sin, Chap. II. McConnell, Francis J., Living Together, Chap. IV. CHAPTER XXVIII RACE TAKING advantage of people who are at a disad- vantage, and hatred of races other than our own, have worked and are working incalculable mischief in the earth. The desire to dominate, race hatred and greed have been the three demons responsible for the mak- ing of most wars, most slavery and most misery. THE RAcE PROBLEM An old hope.—These three have ever thwarted the nobler dreams of the race. Pope Hildebrand hoped to make of all the world one state which should have Christ as ruler. In this he but echoed the dream which the Roman Church has often entertained. In its own way, to be sure, but still very definitely, the papacy wanted to bring the whole world into unity. The trouble with it was that it did not try hard enough or wisely enough when it had its best opportunities. But such efforts as it made, greed and the love of power, and race enmity, in large part nullified. So with Protestantism. For years “heathen shores” were vis- ited far more frequently by slave-traders than by missionaries. Are races inherently inferior?—The problem is still upon us: Can the spirit of Jesus make all the race one? Of course the answer to this depends upon the question whether it ought to. Is it the business of Christianity to make the world one? Ought we to have “the blinding vision of one race, one color, and 263 264 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK one soul in humanity?” It is this that is being chal- lenged on every hand. Gobineau, with his The In- equality of the Races, started a long procession of books that attempt to tell us that the white man is by nature intended to be supreme. This view John Stuart Mill, and millions of other white people, have been and are unable to accept. “Of all the mean excuses by which men blind themselves to the fact that social and moral forces influence the spirit of man, none is so mean as that which ascribes the difference in be- havior to natural, innate differences.” In language more restrained, but equally intense, the churches have spoken out. Hence the largest Protestant denomina- tion in the United States declares officially that “Jesus Christ our Master stands for the oneness of our hu- manity and the equal worth of every human soul, re- gardless of race, birth, or color. . . . Had this vision been followed in its entirety and high challenge, we would have to-day a world of brotherhood instead of a world divided into suspicious and warring racial groups. . . . The most outstanding obstacle to the coming of the kingdom of God among the nations of the earth are these national and racial arrogancies. . . . The time has come for Christianity to assert its mind in no uncertain way and to bring to bear the pressure of its spirit... in the solution of this problem.” Facing the problem at home.—For problem it is! Before it other problems pale into insignificance. It is, first of all, a problem for us at home. We live in a welter of race relations. The Negro is up and doing. The Japanese has taken up his abode with us. The Jew is here in large numbers, and he proves hard to mix. People have come to us from well-nigh every land. They have not always surrendered their lan- © RACE 265 guage or customs or traits, or the love of “the old country.” Some of these are here through no fault of their own. Others have come because they believed that the United States best represented their ideals, or felt that it guaranteed them the best opportunity for free- dom. But very many were brought here under false pretenses. Glib representatives of “big business” al- lured them with visions of instant wealth. By them immigration was fostered to bring “cheap labor’ here; labor ‘that would “stay put.” But on this score they missed their guess. In many of our cities “foreign- ers’ predominate. They set the public standards, dom- inate political life, set the pace in amusements, and control the religious institutions. There is none so remote among us but that his life is affected by those born in other lands or belonging to a different race. As this book is being written it is just twenty-five years ago that the writer himself landed in Hoboken, a badly frightened boy, clinging desperately to his father’s hand, what with so many strange sights and such a confusion of tongues! He trusts that he, for one, has not proved too much of a problem. Yet, you see, even in this book, a “foreigner” enters your life. How the problem deepens.—But when these for- eigners belong to a different race, with different habits and other standards of living, race riots easily come, and hate is readily engendered, especially when the show-sections of cities become “black belts” or “little Italies.” Surely, in our country, we shall have to learn how to live together. It will not do for one section of the population to say to the rest: “God has ordained us your superiors; hence we have the final say, and you are to stay ‘in your place’!” That way 266 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK trouble lies. We shall have to rearrange our thinking. We shall have to tackle the problem not from the angle of nation or of race but from the spiritual angle. Is the spiritual supreme? Has God actually “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth’? Have we all one heavenly Father and is One really Master of us all? Did Jesus live and die for them as well as for us? Questions such as these we shall have to answer in the spirit of Christ to solve the race problem at home. THE EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM “White supremacy.”—But this problem is bigger when we take it the world around. The whites have for long had their own way in the world. When the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588 the ascendency of the English-speaking world began. But though the leadership has come into our hands, the white peo- ples have generally shared in the privileges. We form only about one fourth of the human family, yet con- trol almost nine tenths of its habitable area. ‘True to the habits of old, we have taken advantage of the weak and traded on race hatred. The white man’s greed, his treatment of the natives, his lust for land, his love of domination all have gone toward the mak- ing of endless misery. While this mistreatment has not been confined to the white race yet the white race, by means of its education and culture, is more culpa- ble than any other. The exploitation of the weak that the strong might have gain is the most horrible chapter written in history; and that chapter ts not yet closed. “The rising tide of color.’”—Only, the weak are neither as weak or as ignorant as they were just a little while ago. The World War, probably more than any other single event, has served to open their eyes to the ——_ —_ RACE 267 white man’s follies and to their own potentialities. They are becoming race-conscious. Great populations that a generation ago had not a word to say for them- selves now are openly out for “self-determination.” They are beginning to recognize problems of their own. They have congested populations, while the white man holds the land which would so neatly take care of them. They too are after markets and de- sirable waterfronts. 3 Your enthusiast who strikes up the band for “‘white supremacy” has nothing on his dusky or yellow com- peer who lifts up the self-same cry, but with the color scheme varied a bit! In addition, not a few of them demand revenge on the whites. If Christianity fails with them, there may yet come a day of sorry reckon- ing for us. Yet no one will seek to Christianize these people just to save the white man’s hide, but to bring them into fullness of life. Christians cannot seek the advantage of one race at the expense of others. Chris- tians will seek the progress of every race at the expense of none. | “The hour is come.”—At the pass to which things have come we cannot hope to wait for “a more con- venient season” to secure racial amity. It is now or never, for already the world is one. Science and in- vention have seen to that. Our lines of communica- tion have gone out to all the world. You can now sit in your home, turn the knob on the radio, and tune in on another continent or two. In the near future the world will be still closer drawn together. The significant part of all this is that ideas are spreading with amazing rapidity. General Smuts has said that “the cardinal fact of geography in the twentieth cen- tury is the shortening of distances and the shrinking of the globe.” But if the world is a unit, the people 268 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK in it have but little unity. With a world together, can people stay apart and survive their hates and their prejudices? THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM Inform yourself.—It would seem to be the Christian thing to find out for ourselves what this talk of race really is all about, for the best-informed students con- fess that as yet little is actually known as to what “race’ really is. It scarcely becomes any of us to boast overmuch of ‘“‘race,’ for often the “inferior” races have ousted “superior” ones. We know, how- ever, that the black or the yellow man, as well as the white, can receive the grace, and exhibit the graces of Jesus Christ. The one worthy white supremacy is the supremacy of the white life. The Christian therefore insists on race-respect. Race differences are there; they cannot be effaced and should not be if they could; but race division—that must depart. Race cooperation must replace race-dominance; “to each according to his need, from each according to his ability.” Transform race relations.—Greed and _ injustice doubtless have entered, and do enter, into the matter of race-hatred. Were it not for certain economic and financial and political factors, it is doubtful if race conflicts would ever be very acute. It is racial justice, therefore, which the Christian must seek. All of our racial relations must be Christianized. “Backward races” are to be brought forward not merely by being provided with the implements for their material ad- vance, sanitation, and education, but by being won over to the mind of Christ. Professor John Dewey has said that “the problem of the Pacific is the trans- formation of the mind of China.” We too may say RACE 269 that the whole problem of race is that people every- where shall be “transformed by the renewing of their minds” through Christ. The church may lead.—The missionary program of the church, which has done, and is doing, so much toward race understanding, is itself being recast in line with race respect. There is less and less attempt to force our customs and our forms of administration or of organization upon the churches of the races other than ours. Christians at home are becoming increas- ingly willing that these peoples shall embody and express Christianity in their own ways and by their own methods. It is futile for anyone now to go out as a missionary unless he or she has memorized by heart that fine verse in Second Corinthians, “‘Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy.” “The place of understanding.”—It has been said that there are two classes of people—those who desire to dominate and those who wish to understand. Only the latter is Christian. Columbus felt that “the ends of the earth were to be brought together, and all na- tions and tongues united under the banners of the Redeemer.” This is exactly how Christians are sure to feel. They may practice up on this feeling in sundry ways at home. And they must be world-citizens. For us, as for William Lloyd Garrison, “Our country is the world, our countrymen are mankind.” For Discussion 1. If you lived in a town of many nationalities, how would you go about it to further race-tolerance? 2. Should a church receive members regardless of race? 3. If you are a native-born white, resident of a city, would you sell your house to a black man or an 270 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Italian if you could get a good price, but knew that by doing so, you would lower the value of the real-estate on the block? 4. If you were employing people belonging to what you consider a backward race, would you treat them the same as you would people of your own race? If not, how would you treat them? 5. What dangers and what advantages can you see in “the rising tide of color”? 6. How Christian is our country in its attitude toward other races? SUGGESTED READINGS Mathews, Basil, The Clash of Color. Conklin, Edwin Grant, The Direction of Human Evolu- tion. Oldham, J. H., Christianity and the Race Problem. CHAPTER XXIX INTERNATIONALISM A curious bit of law comes to us from the past. Six centuries ago this statute declared it to be “against the command of God the All-powerful, notwithstand- ing any custom or ordinance, to plunder the ship- wrecked, and all such are accursed,’ and then made the unique, if revolting provision that “whosoever should put up false lights to mislead the unwary and so cause the disaster, ought to be bound in the midst of his house and burned with it, and the whole place turned into a hog-yard.’”? BuILDING A WoRLD CONSCIENCE In the “good” old days.—Shipwrecked mariners of other nations were taken into slavery by those upon whose shores they were stranded, or by those who “rescued” them from the waves. Many, if not most, of the rulers insisted on “the wrecker’s right,” by which they might plunder and enslave any who suf- fered wreck. When laws such as the one mentioned above began to make their appearance kings and lords generally were insulted. What newfangled notion was this, that one had not the right to make slaves of those belong- ing to other nations or races, whom a considerate Providence had delivered into their hands? It was not until a few kings got a dose of their own medicine *Reprinted from Gesta Christi, by permission of George H. Doran Company, publishers. 27% 202 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK by suffering shipwreck themselves, and having to pay handsomely in order to be set free, that this theolog- ical explanation began to be seriously questioned. Even in our day nations are still to be found that count it neither their duty nor their privilege to (a9 stretch out a loving hand To wrestlers with the troubled sea.” “The stranger within the gates” suffered similarly. Not even the Roman attempt to weld various peoples together was strong enough to make the treatment of aliens considerate. Until the thirteenth or fourteenth century a stranger became “bound to the soil’ upon which he had come to reside. Even the property he acquired passed, upon his death, not to his descend- ants, but to the feudal lord. Brace, years ago, pointed out that it took a long while before the Old Testament counsel, “Thou shalt not vex a stranger,” was heeded in Christendom. The church favors the square deal.—Be it said to the credit of the church that it bore effective wit- ness against such cruelty. The implications of Christ on this point were too clear long to escape notice. Christian church-counsels and rulers became increas- ingly aware of the inhumanity of these practices, and of such widespread evils as “piracy on the high seas.” Slowly but surely the counsel was heard and, at least in part, was heeded, that strangers should be treated hospitably, and that those who suffered from what was called “an act of God” had the right to their freedom and their goods. International law.—But separate edicts and treaties between specific nations were not enough. It became clear that nothing short of international legislation would suffice. But how to get that was, and still is, INTERNATIONALISM 273 one of the greatest problems which the race has to face. The first really great attempt in this direction was made by Hugo Grotius, who, despite a dramatic and dangerous existence, formulated the “Rights of War and Peace,” the first concrete advocacy of interna- tional legislation. He was also the first to plead for “open covenants, openly derived at,’ and is justly known in history as “the father of international law.” Grotius was a devout Christian, a most enthusiastic lover of freedom, and an advocate of world-peace. Since then many noble attempts have been made to get the nations to live and act in obedience to law— not only in maritime and trade affairs but in matters of common concern to all mankind. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, long years a ves- tryman in the Episcopal Church, rendered some of the most effective service yet performed in regard to international law. But for a thorough attempt to secure the codification of international law the world had to wait for the Declaration of Paris in 1856. Still much remains to be done. The story goes that an English jurist once dreamed that every Christian idea had been expunged from the law books. Then, as he turned to his books, he found a third of every page blank and the rest meaningless. The lesson of this story is not far to seek. If every law influenced by the mind and spirit of Jesus were stricken out, modern civilization would forthwith be destroyed. Contrariwise, when every law in the world has the stamp of Christ upon it, we may look for a per- manently Christian order of life. With our closely knit civilization and our complex commerce, both the laws of the world and world-laws must fully reflect his mind, if “life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- piness” are to be insured to men. 274 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK SHOWING WoRLD-CONSIDERATENESS “On the throne of the world.’”—Christians are cosmic thinkers, They have all the world in mind. And they know that there is no hope for the race unless enough people develop an international con- science and an international mind. For a while it looked as if Protestantism would abandon such be- ginnings toward internationalism as other Christians had made. It was so individualistic, and it began so soon to run into national grooves, that for a time the outlook was not very promising. But just when things seemed darkest Protestantism awoke to the world-significance of the evangel of Christ. How it happened.—There had been missionaries before. Roman Catholic priests, not a few of them men of devotion and distinction, had invaded various parts of the world. But not until within the past cen- tury did the missionary impulse really grip the con- science of the church. A fair sample of how it hap- pened may be had from the life of that interesting cobbler-teacher-preacher, William Carey. One day as he was teaching geography from a leather globe which he himself had made, “it flashed painfully upon him how small a portion of the human race yet possessed any knowledge of Jesus Christ and his salvation.’ That moment, and moments like it in the careers of other noblemen and noblewomen of God, were auspicious for the human race. Upon the very day that France officially rejected Christianity and en- throned “reason” on the altars of Notre Dame, Carey landed in India, claiming a new continent in the name of Christ! Ministering to the world.—This deep sense of the race-wide responsibility of the Christian is, with in- INTERNATIONALISM 275 creasing momentum, invading the Church of Christ. It makes great demands upon us. It means that we must keep ourselves informed, and that we must, in one way or another, go and “disciple the nations.” But it has its rewards, for now, as Doctor Fosdick has so well reminded us, “Each of us can take some of his own nerve and sinews reduced in wages to the form of money, and through money, which is a naturalized citizen of all lands, and which speaks all languages, can be at work wherever the sun shines. It is a privi- lege which no one knew before our modern age. It is one of the miracles of science, mastered by the spirit of service, that a man busy at his daily tasks at home can yet be preaching the gospel in Alaska, healing the sick in Korea, teaching in the schools of Persia, feed- ing the hungry in India, and building a new civiliza- tion at the headquarters of the Nile.”? Since the World War the churches have begun to put on world-wide programs commensurate with the great needs of the human race. In newness of life.-—See now what is coming to pass by the spirit of Christ among the nations of men. The church has trained many people to think in terms of the race. These have gone to bring, or helped to send, the gospel to realms afar. This has had two results. Many people in those nations have come to know and love Jesus Christ. They are sincerely and sacrificially trying to live in their own way “the Jesus way” of life. Some of them are succeeding so well that they are the envy of the finest of Christians at home. And then the people at home and the people abroad have, both deliberately and unconsciously, ex- erted influence upon their governments for more Christian standards in international affairs. Our in- *The Meaning of Service. The Abingdon Press. 276 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK ternational love has improved and is improving our international law. Mazzini said that national life and international life should be two manifestations of the same principle—‘“the love of God.’ His dream stands a fair chance of coming true, now that nations, as well as individuals, are getting a world-conscience. Insuring success.—To make a success of inter- nationalism we shall have to have Christian leaders in state, church, and school. They shall have to think deeply enough to understand that not only all men but all parts and phases of human life are to be saved in the name of Christ. And we shall have to make sure that those who go as missionaries to other lands have the breadth of vision and the fineness of spirit to appreciate all that is Christian in the religious life and customs of peoples other than our own. ‘God has not left himself without witness anywhere,” and it would be strange indeed had nothing truly divine entered their minds and hearts. Only those great enough to link that good to Christ’s best will do for the challenging task of bringing the world into one- ness of spirit and of life. That this oneness shall always mean “unity in variety” there can be no doubt; yet that gives us all the more hope that real unity can be achieved in the world. While internationalism will necessarily have its legislations, and court, and means of mutual con- sultation and cooperation, the motive of good will that inheres in the spirit of Christ will alone suffice to breathe upon the dry bones of treaties and machinery, and to make internationalism a living thing among men. We are only as yet in the opening stages. At- tempts to rid the world of the opium and white-slave traffics already are under way, and efforts are being redoubled that “war shall be no more.” Yet such sym- ce i INTERNATIONALISM 277 pathy as is shown in substantial measures in times of famine and earthquake and distress will go far toward pointing the nations toward a better way of life. But not until Christians are one and all world thinkers, taking to their own hearts the sin and the saving of the world, will the struggle for internationalism be won. Well may we pray devoutly the words from the Zend-Avesta, one of the sacred books of the East: “May we be such as those who bring on this great Renovation.” For Discussion 1. Does the investment of United States capital in for- eign countries help to Christianize international relations? 2. Has Christianity altered “diplomacy”? 3. The late James Bryce wondered what would happen to a small country if it were found to contain a lot of radium. What would happen? 4. Should none but Christian people be chosen as ambas- sadors to other lands? 5. Must there be a World Court and a League of Nations in order to Christianize international relations? 6. Does “international” finance further internationalism ? SUGGESTED READINGS Bryce, James, /nternational Relations. Merrill, William P., Christian Internationalism. Blakeslee, George H., The Recent Foreign Policy of the United States. Kelman, John, Some Aspects of International Christianity. CHAPTER XXX THE REALM OF GOD WE are now to think of the greatest dream of Jesus. Perhaps “dream” is not just the word to use. For that often suggests the impracticable. And of all things Jesus believed nothing more surely than that this dream would come true. ENTERING Gop’s REALM First in the mind of Jesus.—This dream of his in our day goes by various names. In the King James version it is called the kingdom of God. You would expect any translation dedicated “to the most high and mighty prince, James, by the grace of God, king,” to speak of it in that way. Since this is the version that has been most in use, this is the phrase that is familiar to most of us. But we are not as familiar with kings and with things kingly as people used to be. Hence other and better terms are coming into use. People now speak of the democracy of God, the government of heaven, the beloved community, or of the realm of God. This writer chances to be partial to the last term. So, having given the old term its due hereto- fore, let us for this discussion adhere to “‘the realm of God.” It is hoped that the preceding chapters have made clear to you that, since the life of Jesus came to the fore, not only his viewpoints but his views have come into prominence. Of these none has effected the think- ing and life of the church to a greater extent than the discovery that Christ’s hope for humanity was the 278 THE REALM OF GOD 279 realm of God. Indeed, this has been the most revo- lutionary thing the new study of his life has disclosed. For years the church never suspected what Christ meant with it. To be sure, they used his term, but they did not catch his idea. Anyone who studies the New Testament in the light of the information con- cerning it which is now available is sure to see that the realm of God was foremost in his mind. It was his greatest hope, his supreme idea. He knew of no finer news to bring to a needy world than that “the realm of God is at hand.” A lost emphasis.—In the synoptic Gospels this phrase, “the realm of God,” occurs with surprising frequency. But in the rest of the New Testament it occurs surprisingly seldom. And when it does occur, we find that the writers generally had something else in mind. It was an old Jewish phrase Jesus had pressed into service to express his faith. But they failed to understand all that he had in mind, and so they retained more of the old Jewish idea than the one Christ had had. It is rarely that his actual thought is reproduced. Only in that strange, last book of the New Testament, which had such a time of it to get into the “canon” at all, does talk of the realm of God reappear with a will. It is mentioned triumphantly there. In all the dramatic struggle and tragedy there depicted, one fact stands luminously: “Of his realm there shall be no end.” How shall we account for this change of emphasis and meaning on the part of most of the writers of the New Testament? An avalanche of literature has appeared to account for this discrepancy. When the evidence is sifted down, the reason appears to be the one a famous student by the name of Ritschl pointed out years ago: “This ruling idea of Jesus failed to 280 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK maintain itself as central in the practical interest of the apostles.” Back of this reason are reasons we cannot enumerate here, except to say that these go a long way toward showing that the apostles did not intentionally backslide from the faith. Yet the fact remains that they did not continue to be interested in that which most interested Jesus. Not until many centuries later —within this last century—did his followers rejoin him in his chief enthusiasm. It may be (we pray not) that it will be another century before all of his fol- lowers will catch the contagion of it. Partial views of the realm.—For to-day two mis- conceptions still serve to hide Christ’s meaning. One of these comes to us from of old, and the other is new. As a boy, in my home church, I frequently heard a fine old man offer prayer; and he invariably concluded by saying to God, ““When thou hast done with us here on earth, receive us all into thy everlasting kingdom.” What he did, of course, was to make the kingdom synonymous with heaven. He was not to blame for that! He was running in a well-worn groove. So had some of the early churchmen taught, and so had the church for centuries trained men to think. Then there is another misconception, rather popular just now. According to it, the realm of God is a new order of society, in which people will be just and fair in their dealings one with another, in which industry and all other forms of human endeavor shall be based on the motive of service, in which the products of in- dustry shall be equitably divided, and into which there shall be born only those equipped with clean blood, clear brains and normal emotions. The greatness of the realm.—Either of these views is amiss since both give but a partial portrait of God’s realm. It goes without saying that the realm of THE REALM OF GOD Se God includes the realm of heaven and insures the reign of love. God is not simply the God of this world or of this era. “The heaven of heavens cannot contain him.” The Father’s house is far roomier than this little earth. And it ought to be clear to all that, with the rule of God among men, tremendous changes will come. Both in heaven and in the social order the heavenly Father must reign. The realm of God is at once other-and-better-worldly. Yet the realm of God transcends all geographical or chronological ideas. Jesus said that it does not come “with observation’; you cannot detect its boundaries; no intellectual sightseeing tour will suffice to give you a fair idea of it. Jesus said that no one can say of the realm, “lo here! or lo, there!’ It is not here or there; it is here and there; present and future; within and without. It comes gradually and suddenly; some- times it works like yeast; then again, it is all at once found like a pearl of great price. Jesus went out of his way to make these and other points clear. What grievings of soul must be his to know that all these years people have been and are so “slow of heart to understand”’ ! ADVANCING Gop’s REALM The realm Godward and Godlike.—Let us here highly resolve that we shall never forget that the realm of God ts first of all a spiritual movement and that, only because it is this, it issues in a social one. It is not simply to be the realm for God, it is the realm of God. Jt has God back of it; at its disposal is the power of God’s energy. In other words, Jesus banked on the resources of God to bring about brotherhood. Those of us who justly take pride in being builders of the realm had best take note of this. Of all the calam- 282 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK ities of history, which are sadder than those in which well-meaning people heroically hoisted the flag of fraternity, only to find their ship of hope stranded on selfishness? Jesus taught that only those in whose hearts “the love of God is shed abroad” have the mo- tive power to make a go of it. They only can be builders of the realm of God who find in the experience of God’s love at once their incentive and their power to make good will the program for all of life. A plain account of the realm.—Perhaps we will be helped to the meaning of the realm if we put the mat- ter catechism-fashion: ‘ 1. What is the realm of God? That state of affairs in which all of life is brought into harmony with the God of Christ. Paul even hoped “that creation as well as man would one day be freed . . . and gain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” 2. How important is this realm? Supremely important; nothing can compare with it in importance. Jesus said: “You must make his kingdom your greatest concern.” 3. Who rules this realm? Our heavenly Father, who is the God and Father of Jesus, and whom Jesus called “Lord of heaven and earth.” 4. Who belong to it? a. Children and the childlike. “The realm of God,” said Jesus, “belongs to such as these.” b. The spiritually-minded. “The kingdom,” Jesus went on to explain, “belongs to... those who feel their spiritual need.’ *The New Testament. An American Translation. Edgar J. Goodspeed. The University of Chicago Press, publishers, Chicago, Illinois. THE REALM OF GOD 283 c. Any one with enough goodness to suffer for it. Of these too the Master spoke. “Those who have been persecuted for the sake of good- ness . . « the realm) ..\4 is theits:” 5. Where does it begin? In the hearts of those who experience God. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus: “No one can see God’s realm unless he is born from above.” 6. Who are its builders? Those who believe Jesus. To Peter and his disci- ples Jesus said, “I will give you the keys of the realm.” 7. How far is it to extend? To all peoples, all conditions, all of life. The writer of the last book in the Bible saw that “of his realm there shall be no end.” 8. What, then, is the first Christian duty? To pray “Thy reign begin” and to “hurl our lives” after that prayer! The power of his dream.—Even though this dream of Christ’s has not often been fully understood, enough of it has been grasped to put much of life in order with the spirit of God. It has furthered social betterment as nothing else has done. And now that we see more clearly what Jesus was aiming at, Christians by the thousands are persuaded that only that is in order on earth which is in keeping with the mind of Christ. They labor in the faith that human society, disorgan- ized as it is in many of its phases, and organized around self-seeking as it is in many others, can be made spiritual. Noteworthy experiments have been, and are being, carried on to introduce personal and business life into the realm of God. The challenge of the dream.—For we are not simply to announce the realm of God; we are to ad- 284 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK vance it. It is becoming increasingly clear that this will be no child’s play! It will take all there is of us and in us. Here is a fair inkling of what the realm of God on earth (to say nothing of life beyond it) is sure to mean: 1. A redeemed society, in which the spiritual shall be supreme. Our fathers used to have a quaint but significant phrase: “Entire sanctification.” That this phrase has been utilized by certain fanatical groups ought not to blind us to the message it conveys. It means that life as a whole must be lived in God. Well, it is this that Christians are after. Imperfect as they are, and realize themselves to be, they strive to periect society in the image of God. 2. A Christian social order, in which the motive of service shall go ahead of the profit motive. “The serv- ice motive in a Christian community must include in- dustry. Except in some notable cases humanity as now constituted does not put forth its best efforts unless a personal reward can be gained. The church should have for its goal a time when pride in workmanship and loyalty in service will be the motives animating industry, and when all work will be so organized that these motives may be possible for all workers.” 3. Industrial democracy, in which human values shall have first consideration. Until labor and manage- ment get as fair a share in the control of industry as capital now gets, industry will not be “the instrument for aiding men to find that abundant life for which Christianity stands.” How far are you from the Kingdom?—The question is how eager we are to see Christ’s dream come true. Some years ago a man wrote a book with the searching title, Dare We Still Be Christians? Well, when you consider what a reversal of life as we know THE REALM OF GOD 28s it now this dream of Christ will mean, dare we? Or, better, dare you? Since this dream has been clear, mighty little good can come of one’s following Jesus just a little way. Many, when they found out what Christ was really after, “walked no more with him.” Had you not better quit right now? For, out in the world of affairs, that dream of his is not exactly the most popular thing with which you could come along. You had better have a care! Here, once again, only heroes need apply. “Thy kingdom, Lord, we long for, Where love shall find its own; And brotherhood triumphant Our years of pride disown. Thy captive people languish In mill and mart and mine, We lift to thee their anguish, We wait thy promised sign. “Tf, now, perchance in tumult His destined sign appear— The rising of the people— Dispel our coward fear! Let comforts that we cherish, Let old traditions die! Our wealth, our wisdom perish, So that he draw but nigh.’’? For Discussion 1. Would there by any poverty in the realm of God? 2. Would natural resources be owned or controlled by a few? 3. Would it be possible for any one person to accumu- late vast wealth in the realm of God? *Used by permission, from “The Church and the Hour,” by Vida Scudder. Copyright by E. P. Dutton & Co. 286 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK 4. How far is the social order Christian now? 5. Is there a different standard to-day for business life than for professional life? Should there be? 6. Let some member of the class report on some mod- ern experiments in industrial democracy. SUGGESTED READINGS Hodgkin, Henry T., The Christian Revolution, Chap. II. Diefendorf, Dorr F., The Christian in Social Relation- ships, Chap. XIII. a ~~ PART VIII CHRISTIANITY AT WORK IN RELIGION “The angels keep their ancient places— Turn but a stone and start a wing! ’*Tis ye, ’tis your estranged faces, That miss the many-splendored thing.”’? —Francis Thompson. *Francis Thompson, “In No Strange Land,” from Collected Poems of Francis Thompson. Reprinted by permission of Dodd, Mead & Co., publishers. , " « < 7 f f i ‘ ay ba whee: by iD. . 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And it has made life more livable. It has showered life with grace and glory. It has set life free: free without and within. And still it presses on. It is seeking to make social order, so that all human relations may reflect the spirit of Christ. One more thing we need to note: Christianity has given and is giving a deeper meaning to life. It mag- nifies the greatness of God and man. An English philosopher has said that it is as ridiculous to suppose that a better way will be found than Jesus’ way of thinking about God as to presume that something, at present unknown to us, will be discovered that is superior to love. We owe to Christianity our most adequate conception of God. THE FATHER OF Our Lorp Other ideas of God.—In the world into which Jesus came there were many conceptions of God. There are many now. “Gods many and lords many” could always be found. Monotheism—the belief that there is but one God—did not make very rapid headway among men. In this respect the Jews were ahead of most of the rest. We know now that over most of the East people thought, and still think, of Deity in terms of fate and fear. Elsewhere God has been regarded 289 290 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK chiefly from the angle of power. When the Greeks got ready to give up polytheism they began to inter- pret God in terms of substance. Their minds were governed by the tangible and the visible. They could not think of God except in terms of things. The Jews and God.—Over against all this came Jesus to talk of God in terms of character. But had not the Jews too spoken of God in moral terms? Was he not simply following in the footsteps of the fathers? Yes, but with a difference, and, as we see it now, with a world of difference. We do not know exactly how widespread the thought of God as a Father was among the Jews. That their leaders thus spoke of him the Old Testament attests. But they did not mean with it the same thing Jesus meant. That crude parental power which, as we have seen, Chris- tianity had yet to counter, was strongly in their thought when they spoke of fatherhood. In the pagan world, as has been described elsewhere, a father could do much as he wished with his children. He might even put them to death, without fear of being brought to account by the law. The Jews of Jesus’ day did not go to such extremes. But the ideas which lay back of these extremes persisted in modified form, in their minds; as, indeed, they persisted for long in Christen- dom. ‘These were the ideas of authority and power. The Jewish father had, and cherished, both of these. As the head of the family, he held undisputed sway. He expected implicit obedience. His word was law. When, therefore, the Jew was told that God was his Father he remembered at once that God’s word was law. The Jew saw no contradiction between a police- God and a Father-God. The God of Jesus.—But Jesus did. To the Jew, God was father-like; to Christ, God was fatherly. At THE CHRISTIAN GOD 291 first glance this appears to be a distinction without a difference. For Jesus too believed in the authority and power of God. He never questioned either, and often referred to both. But Jesus did not believe these the facts concerning God which needed to be su- premely heralded. The Jews did. Upon them they had built their huge and stifling system of legalism. But legalism, of all things, was the one thing Jesus abhorred. Authority and power were not the things to be stressed about God; perfection and love were! Jesus turned men’s minds from the legal to the ethical aspects of God. A new emphasis.—So Jesus placed the emphasis on the fact that God is a loving Father. He called men’s attention to the importance of his character. He asked them to believe that God is perfect love. They had been extolling his power in the works of creation and in their national events. He told them that they had not looked deeply enough. He urged them to note God’s love. Love—that is the supreme power in the universe; ‘bank on that, he told them. And he was eager that it be known how inclusive a love this is. “One is your Father,” he explained. “He makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?” (two fora third of acent!) “Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.” The perfect love is universal! There is no length to which this love will not go. A love that was willing to endure even the cross—it is thus that you see God’s love at its very best. The God of the Christian is a God who suffers for the sake of love! Where will you go for a deeper insight into God? Where find a sublimer one? Christ’s message about God.—Has it ever oc- curred to you how revolutionary a teaching about God 292 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK this was? Scarcely anyone had ever suspected this about God, or if anyone had, the news had not got out. But he drove the point home. Read the Gospels for yourself and see how they bear this out. In season and out Jesus was saying to folks what we all have the right to say, “everyone, in his own tongue” : You may trust God! For He is the perfect spirit! He is better than our best! He is “powerful goodness”’! He is the beautiful Friend! The eternal energy is concerned for you! Yes, you do find yourself in a universe of law. But let not that trouble you! Rather, let it be cause for joy! For this universe of law is a friendly universe! God has a father’s heart! And his heart goes out to every one of you! If an earthly Father knows how to give good gifts, how much more your Father! You ought to know Him! For unless and until you do, you will not know what life really is. You will all your days miss the supreme Power! You will exist without life! You will exist without love! For God is love! Love is the way to God! Love is the life in God! Godless life is less than life. God-less love cannot “love love.” Love Him! Love Him with all your powers! Love Him with all your life! Live your life in love to Him! THE CHRISTIAN GOD 293 This is the message concerning God Jesus came to bring. This message of his took wings. It has gone almost everywhere. And the day is not far distant when every land on earth shall have heard the good news Jesus brought about God. The persistence of his idea.—It is amazing how virile his gospel of God has been. You might suppose that theology would have put an end to it, for the church played havoc with Christ’s thought of God. It put God far away; it hid him behind his mother; behind “His only Son, our Lord’; behind a long procession of angels, apostles, martyrs, saints, inter- mediaries, hierarchies; it made him austere and for- bidding; one who had picked his favorites with zeal- ous care, but had little concern for the mass of the children of men. How the church could have made such caricatures of the Father of Jesus is beyond most of us now. Yet even to this day large sections of the church persist in doing just this. Furthermore, there has always been the tendency to subordinate God’s perfection and love to his authority and power. Yet, despite all this, what was said of his great Son may be said. of the Father: “He could not be hid.”” Men have broken through all the guards which the church had set up, and have found their way directly to the Father God. Hence a man could pray several centuries ago: “I am forced, good Father, to seek thee daily, and thou offerest thyself daily to be found: whensoever I seek, I find thee, in my house, in the fields, in the temple, and in the highway. Whatsoever I do, thou art with me; whether I eat or drink, whether I write or work, go to ride, read, meditate, or pray, thou art ever with me; wheresoever I am, or whatsoever I do, I feel some measure of thy mercies and love. If I be 204 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK oppressed, thou defendest me; if I be envied, thou guardest me; if I hunger, thou feedest me; whatso- ever I want thou givest me.” Despite all handicaps and all perversions, Christianity has made the great- est contribution toward humanity's knowledge of God. The deepest need.—For nothing is more impor- tant than getting people’s conceptions of Deity straightened out. Bishop Quayle once said: “We must have a right notion about God. If we get wrong about God, our catastrophe is supreme. There is no mending it. If you get a pusillanimous God, you get a pusillanimous population. If you get a magnanimous God, you will have a magnanimous population. If you get a heartless God, you will have a Roman popu- lation. If you get a gleeful, esthetic God, you will have a Greek race of laughter and of song and of grace and death. And if you get a heart God, and a God of a heart, then you will get a heaven populated with music and laughter, and an earth populated with joy, and a world that is made so tender that a touch upon it is like the touch upon the hands of a little child. We must get right notions about God.” In this day, with many minds groping for the light, to convince a man of the truth of the God of Christ is to render him the highest possible personal service. THE SON OF THE FATHER “The Word became flesh.’—Yet Jesus went about this in a way most of us would not. Jesus never took the trouble to compose definitions of God. And he never even debated his existence. He just took that for granted. What, then, was his method? It has come to be known the world over by a flowery theo- logical word, which is, after all, more floral than theological: incarnation. In other words God lived THE CHRISTIAN GOD 295 in him and he lived God. Nothing has ever so fur- thered the will of God as when Jesus came to show forth his character. “I have manifested thy name,” Jesus made boast to God. It was the proudest thing he was able to report. It was also the greatest. “‘Jona- than Edwards makes me fear and tremble,” Haw- thorne said, “but Jesus Christ makes me hope and love.” The greatest gift of Christianity was and 1s Jesus Christ. He 1s its supreme contribution to the human race. There has been but one Christ. ‘Those who become like him do so through him. “Grace and reality ours through Jesus Christ.’’— Because of the revelation Jesus made both of God and man, the New Testament writers are eager to let their readers know that Jesus, in a unique sense, is the gift of God. They seek to stress that point. They wish it understood that his coming into the world was not just an ordinary event. Hence they strain lan- guage and symbols to emphasize their belief that he came to us from above. Out of the Infinite Life and Love of the universe Jesus was sent to us, and was sent to us for the purpose of our redemption. To paraphrase a similar statement, had he aimed. at reform or civilization, he would have failed. But he aimed at redemption, and therefore won. This is the explanation the New Testament gives of Christ. This is the explanation which, through all these centuries, has been winning out in the church. The Saviour.—The greatest explanation of him in all the New Testament is that “God was in Christ.” And the greatest tribute paid him there is that “in him life lay, and this life was the Light for men.” Sil- vester Horne, years ago, said: “Kings and their king- doms, princes and their principalities, autocracies and democracies alike, touch the end of his conquering 296 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK scepter in token of homage. And as the centuries roll on, so far from being found out, discredited, superseded, that part of the world which is in the van of civilization and education looks more and more to him for humanizing influences, and recognizes as the ultimate problem of problems how to bring its laws and customs and habits into captivity to the spirit and mind of this young Prophet Carpenter, as he seemed, who lived in an obscure land, and was hated and eventually murdered by his own countrymen, nineteen hundred years ago.” This is why in all ages, the same song goes up: “Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ; Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.” How about us?—Ours, then, to “show the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Dying, Matthew Arnold said: “Christ came to reveal what righteousness really is. For nothing will do except righteousness; and no other conception of righteousness will do except Christ’s conception of it—his method and secret.” . “Hath he marks to lead me to him, If he be my guide? ‘In his feet and hands are wound-prints, And his side.’ “Tf I find him, if I follow, What his guerdon here? ‘Many a sorrow, many a labor, Many a tear.’ “Tf I still hold closely to him, What hath he at last? ‘Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, Jordan passed.’ THE CHRISTIAN GOD 207 “If I ask him to receive me, Will he say me nay? ‘Not till earth and not till heaven Pass away.’ “Finding, following, keeping, struggling, Is he sure to bless? ‘Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs, ‘Answer, “Yes.”’ ” For Discussion 1. It is said that there are “ten thousand definitions of God.” Have you one? Give it. 2. Can we hope to get a perfect definition of God? Do we need one? What do we need? 3. Is the Christian God personal? If so, why? 4. What is the difference between the Mohammedan Allah and the God of our Lord? 5. What must a man believe about Jesus in order to become a Christian? 6. What does it mean to “come to Jesus”? SUGGESTED READINGS Brown, Charles R., Why I Believe in Religion, Chap. I. Abbott, Lyman, What Christianity Means to Me, Chap. VII Rall, Harris Franklin, The Meaning of God. CHAPTER XXXII FAITH In this closing chapter, let us face man’s greatest need—confidence. When the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews expressed his conviction that “without faith it is impossible to please God,” he did not over- state matters. Without faith one can neither give satisfaction to life nor get satisfaction from it. Faith is needed most of all. If Christianity is to succeed, we must be men and women of faith. TRUSTFULNESS Faith in life.—People need confidence in the worth- whileness of life. Those of us who are young do not readily realize how urgent a need this is. To us the question, Is life worth while? has not come very in- sistently. “The wild joys of living” are ours; to many of us “to be young is very heaven.” We feel that it is good for us to be here. But when we lose someone we love, or some other solemn experience comes to us, that question is likely to rush in upon us with terrible urgency. We do well to remember that many youths face this question all the time. It stalks before them, with grim and sinister aspects, by day and by night. What is there worth while about life that has to be lived in constant poverty or disease or dread? We had better confess that life as some folks have to live it is not very much worth while! ° Yet, even in their case, we can do no better than to save, or to fur- ther, their confidence in life. It is a great event in 298 FAITH 299 the life of any man when he comes to understand that “the most ingenious hope is nearer truth than the most rational despair.” Your importance.—To make people confident that their lives are worth while, we shall have to convince them that their lives are consequential; that they mat- ter; matter in themselves to the race and to God. They must be given the vision which made Jesus as- sert: “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that... we shall be.’ Bulwer Lytton once wrote a story of a man who lived for years with the sense that he was an onlooker, not a participant in life. No greater moment can come to a man than that in which he real- izes that he is in the swim of life; that he is of con- sequence im the universe and to it. An old weaver became known for the prayer he used to pray, ““O God, help me to hold a high opinion of myself.” It is a prayer we must help people to answer. For only this makes life bearable. There is so much to thwart man’s fondest hopes and aims. We need the steadying con- fidence that progress is possible in this process we call life. | A good deal that is in us yet remains to be brought out. It was said concerning Jesus that ‘he knew what was in man.” Not many of us can lay claim to so enviable a knowledge. Rather, like Maeterlinck, “‘we live so far from ourselves that we are ignorant of nearly everything that occurs at the horizon of our being.” The discovery of ourselves, what an enter- prise that is! Alfred Russel Wallace, after years of scientific study, arrived at the conclusion that “the supreme end and purpose of this vast universe was the production of the living soul in the perishable body of man.’ Maybe the New Testament writer had just 300 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK this in mind when he suggested that the whole creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God. At all events, it is some such confidence in life as these men had that must be imparted to people everywhere. Christianity must say to them, in the name and phrase of its Founder, “I came that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more.” Faithful to the end.—It is in this confidence that people must come to face the middle years of life and then to confront age. The question, Is life worth while? takes on proportions for those who reach mid- dle life. By this time they know—or think they know —disillusionment. Some of their deepest hopes have gone for naught; they have discovered within them- selves limitations which in youth they did not even sus- pect. The edge of their spirit of adventure has worn off; they go through with life rather than up through it. Hence “the pestilence that walketh at noonday” is likely to consist of the cynicism often expressed in the query, “What's the use?’ Well may they pray the biblical petition, “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years,’ for at this stage of life, confi- dence in life’s worth-whileness easily departs. Happy he who in youth has laid such enduring foundations that nothing that happens “in the midst of the years” can undermine his faith. More happy he who, in the face of approaching age, can meet the world with the song Browning made immortal: “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith ‘A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!” FAITH 301 And Christianity has always asserted “‘that life shall endless be.” It has been said that before Christ came men made their tombs face the west, for the soul’s sun had set. But after Christ, tombs faced the East, the place of light. Bunyan, in The Pilgrim’s Progress, summed up the question when into the mouth of Chris- tian he put these words: “Then I must venture. To go back is nothing but death, to go forward is fear of death—and everlasting life beyond it. I will yet go forward!’ Besides, anyone who has entered into fellowship with Christ will stand ready to say: “Ah, Christ, if there were no hereafter, It still were best to follow thee.” ‘THE CHRISTIAN TRUST Faith in God.—To say that people need confidence in life is but another way of saying that they need to perceive that life is spiritual. When destruction swept down upon Pompeii, a sentinel stationed at a corner stood to his post. Centuries later they found him there. He had not moved; his spear was still in his hand! But at the outer gates of the city, among many others, they found a woman, desperately clutching her jewels in her hand. To the one, duty was foremost; the other was chiefly concerned for the things which she possessed. Here is an ancient example of two prevailing viewpoints. The one stands for the spirit- ual, the other for the materialistic outlook upon life. Christianity, as we have seen, stands for God. Al- luding to him, the ancient poet says: “Thou art the confidence of the ends of all the earth and of them that are afar off on the sea.” As a matter of fact, how- ever, multitudes lack confidence in him. They suffer from unfair representations of him. The Father of 302 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK our Lord Jesus Christ needs to be proclaimed. One task confronting Christians to-day is that of awaken- ing people to the meaning and presence of the Chris- tian God. Much heroic work is now being done in this field, but much more of it needs to be done. Jesus said that people can glorify the Father when the lights of our lives shine. Faith in Jesus Christ.—Carlyle, passing the image of Christ on one of his pessimistic days, said: “Ah, poor fellow, your part is played out.” It sometimes seems that way. And to many people it always seems that way. In our pessimistic moods, it is easy to gather evidence that the world as yet has but little use for the real Jesus. To Christians, however, this is the more a spur toward revealing him to men, for they are convinced that if people only had implicit con- fidence in Jesus Christ, a better day would come. The world has all along suffered from a partial trust in Christ. All too long has he been regarded as a beau- tiful and benign character, gracious and gentle, whose teachings were beautiful, but who was not really in- tended of God to put all of life into subjection to good will. This has been the besetting sin of the church. He has been rejected by the very people by whom he was respected. Much of this is due to the fact that but few have, at any time, really understood him. We, at least, find ourselves in an age in which we are con- stantly urged to go back to Jesus that we may go for- ward with him! But this only increases our respon- sibility. The world must be taught to know the actual meaning of Jesus: the significance of his life, the im- port of his teachings, the importance of his death and “the power of his resurrection.” Lest we forget, let us hasten to note that “the world” is your world first FAITH 303 of all: the circle in which you move, the realm where your influence tells. It is this world that stands in im- mediate need of confidence in Jesus Christ. We must take Jesus seriously. One searches in vain for some new way of putting this old truth. It has all been said so often; how is it we give it no heed? There must come upon us a sort of divine recklessness. “Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God.” We must wager our lives on him. “You're a socialist,” sneered an angry official at a young clergyman. “No,” replied the preacher calmly, “T am far more radical than that; I am a Christian!” We shall have to be willing to risk our lives, our in- stitutions, our constitutions, our social order, even our comforts, if we really care to give people confidence in Jesus Christ. We are accountable for our time, our talents, and our opportunity. Thomas a Kempis said, “Vanity it is, to wish to live long, and to be careless to live well.” Faith in Christianity.—For, in the long run, folks are not going to have confidence in Christianity until a great many people ardently practice it. As things stand, faith in Christianity must, in many quarters, not only be created, but restored, for that which has gone by its name has been but a poor ghost of its real self. “People,” said Samuel Butler, “are equally horrified at hearing Christianity doubted, and at see- ing it practiced.” Faith in Christianity must mean life risked on it and civilization ventured for it. THE Victorious LIFE Christlikeness.—So it all comes down to what you and I really are. There are two ways in which people try to be Christian. The one way is chiefly external. People try to copy Christ. They put Christ on an 304 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK easel and then, laboriously, copy him line after line. “T find,’ wrote John Wesley in his Journal, three days after his heart had been strangely warmed, “‘that all my strength lies in keeping my eyes fixed upon Jesus.” This effort is immensely worth while. But one who sets out to do this had better recognize that he has set himself to no simple task. Jesus is not easily copied. You go infor a large contract when you at- tempt to imitate what Lyman Abbott well described as “that strange life and that extraordinary character with its glorious but puzzling contradictions: cour- ageous but never combative; gentle but never timid; masterful but never self-assertive; simple in taste but never ascetic; sympathetic with all men but com- promising with none; rejoicing in activity yet seeking solitude; pure in heart yet friend of sinners; patient with wrongs to himself but indignant with wrongs to others; vanquishing a mob by the magic of his pres- ence, yet yielding himself up without resistance to the legalized force of an unjust government.”* ‘Tennyson similarly felt that amazing greatness of his: “Thou seemest human and divine; The highest, holiest manhood, thou; Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine.” Christliness. —The other way in which people strive to be Christian is chiefly internal. They seek for the spirit of Jesus. Theology has used ponderous phrases to tell men that they can best attain Christlikeness through Christliness. Now we do not simply trace his deeds and try to copy them; now we get his spirit and the mind that was in him. Many a creedal article that to you sounds merely like a bundle of disjointed words, *Lyman Abbott, What Christianity Means to Me. Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company. FAITH 305, and that in reality simply succeeds in concealing thought, was intended to express the truth that the one way to imitate Christ is to incarnate him; to be, as Bishop Brooks used to put it, ourselves Jesus Christs. The world is not going to get confidence in Jesus, in the Father of Jesus, in the Spirit of Jesus, in the way of Jesus, until there are in it a great many “living epistles,’ who reach the Christianity they preach. There is a story to the effect that, on his first visit to America Ole Bull, the violinist, encountered considerable opposition on the part of the violinists here. James Gordon Bennett offered the Norwegian the columns of his paper that he might reply to his critics. “I tink,” said Ole Bull, in his broken English, “it is best tey writes against me, and I plays against tem.” Many of us must be ablé to play our religion so well that all criticism of Christianity shall go for naught. A parting thought.—Christianity has been at work. It is at work now. It needs you. But you can only work it if it is at work in you. One of the greatest leaders of American thought used to go about telling the story of what great men had seen in Jesus Christ. He would say to the people who gathered to listen to him: “Consider the men whom Christ has mastered, and then consider another thing: Why has he not mas- tered you?” The New Testament deems that life a success which is “worthy to stand before the Son of » man.” Are you worthy? “Who answers Christ’s insistent call Must give himself, his life, his all, Without one backward look. Who sets his hand unto the plow And glances back with anxious brow, His calling hath mistook. 306 CHRISTIANITY AT WORK Christ claims him wholly for his own He must be Christ’s, and Christ’s alone.”’? For Discussion 1. Are “the faith’ and “the way” synonymous in the thinking of the church? Could they be? How? 2. Should we pray for faith or should we pray in faith? 3. There is said to be “more faith in honest doubt .. . than in half the creeds.” ‘What does this statement mean? 4. What is the difference between faith and credulity? Do some religious bodies confuse the two? 5. Is conceit confidence? 6. How has Jesus aided faith in immortality ? SUGGESTED READINGS Fosdick, Harry Emerson, The Meaning of Faith. Jones, Rufus W., Spiritual Energies. Versteeg, John M., Christ and the Problems of Youth, Chap. VI. * Hearts Courageous, “Follow Me,” John Oxenham, The Abingdon Press. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bowran, J. G., Christianity and Culture. Brace, C. L., Gesta Christt. Brown, W. A., Impertalistic Religion and the Religion of Democracy. Carlyle, A. J., The Christian Church and Liberty. Cross, George, Creative Christianity. Cunningham, William, Christianity and Soctal Questions. Dennis, J. F., Christian Missions and Social Progress. Dickey, Samuel, The Constructive Revolution of Jesus. Drown, E. S., The Creative Christ. Earp, E. L., Social Aspects of Religious Institutions. Foakes-Jackson, F. J., Studies in the Life of the Early Church. Gardner, C. S., The Ethics of Jesus and Social Progress. Glover, T. R., Jesus in the Experience of Men. Hillis, N. D., The Influence of Christ in Modern Life. Hodgkin, H. T., The Christian Revolution. Hough, L. H., Synthetic Christianity. Lewis, Edwin, Jesus Christ and the Human Quest. Lofthouse, W. F., Altar, Cross and Commumity. Macfarland, C. S., International Christian Movements. McConnell, F. J., Democratic Christianity. McGlothlin, W. J., The Course of Christian History. Moore, E. C., The Spread of Christianity in the Modern W orld. | Mozley, J. K., The Achievements of Christianity. Shaw, C. G., Christianity and Modern Culture. Spencer, Malcolm, Work, Play, and the Gospel. Stead, F. H., The Story of Social Christianity. Walker, Williston, A History of the Christian Church. 307 . ou Ca er at . -« = ‘ bah fosats CACY eee “B15? 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