—sh eae BV 600.2 .J636 1924 Johnson, Irving Peake, Db. 1866. Cushioned pews ‘ s oe Rad 2 hs Ay i i , . ¥ fa e 2% tage " 5 ; : wae chee 0. Tutt ” / CUSHIONED PEWS BOOKS BY BISHOP JOHNSON Confirmation Instructions Fifty cents a copy; four dollars a dozen. The Way of Life Paper, fifty cents a copy; cloth, seventy-five cents a copy. The Historical Develop- ment of the Church Thirty-five cents a copy; three dollars and fifty cents a dozen. The Personal Christ Fifty Cents a copy; four dollars a dozen. | WITNESS BOOKS 6140 Cottage Grove Avenue CHICAGO, ILL. CUSHIONED PEWS Sig eee RT. REV. IRVING P. JOHNSON, D.D., Bishop of Colorado ~ ~ and - - Editor of The Witness CHICAGO WITNESS PUBLISHING CO. 1924 FEB 22 2000 A > #Pe: asicas sewtS CVU0h VOMRONUVCS 8 Po07sS (> 307 c® | Copyright, 1924, by WITNESS PUBLISHING COMPANY Printed in the United States of America FOREWORD LEAR thinking and the application of sound C; common sense principles to the practice of the Christian religion are the characteristics of the writings of the Bishop of Colorado in the editorial columns of The Witness for the past eight years. Shams, unrealities, conventionalities have been laid bare by his trenchant wit. His keen sense of humor and large hearted sympathy has lifted his message out of the sphere of caustic criticism and enabled him to challenge his readers to a life of reality and constructive practice in the building up of the Kingdom of God. These articles have been produced in the midst of the strenuous life that falls to the lot of a Bishop of the Church in the Middle West. Railroad trains and stations, with a suit case for a desk, have been the necessary Editorial sanctum in which most of them were born. For this reason they are all the more valuable and thought compelling. His observant eye sees clearly the foibles and weaknesses of ordinary human nature. His sharp pointed pen, dipped in the ink of good-nature and ready wit, outlines pictures of men and women as we really are. His faith in the love of God is unfailing. He sees clearly and be- eves wholly in God’s power to redeem humanity through the Church as we catch the vision of what the Church actually stands for in the lives of men. Bishop Johnson’s contribution in enabling men and women to see the vision and inspiring them to live it more earnestly has been outstanding and unique. This book is well worthy of a wide circulation amongst them as the expression of a real man’s religious faith and practice. JAMES WISE, Bishop of Kansas. Table of Contents RELIGION IN AMERICA MMBUIGHEI AL OWS Yt Gte atts ne ie eee oh 13 ee I SULCS oe oe ie rei Nee a gaa Lae 19 Dee CLiLes sant SLalAS MILES ee isin sce see ess 25 Bee STI LNSCOUS Ws ee ree AAS ig cone «G0 La ee 31 Pneebic-and: Little in. Religion... 0.80. 68.. o.% ol The Mean and Generous in Religion.......,... 41 BUTE LOR OLE ET HOS is rs ftir th. spb ae lene ee ee 47 ote Cereal SY ee 1 RCE faa A agra eke a 52 pew GVOUSTICRS 7 OL SLAVING: (.5 ous cele oe bss abe 59 THE SOCIAL GOSPEL PrmOrientali I NogICtMeNt .».. te. dee. so cele es eee 67 RPP OCTANE COSDCL itt hen ask tk otal Sate 0 aE 71 Bm IR TIE ee Aas hc cial dane a! Vietoioty & ole hv alelteren 78 POINOLENCY FOte DEllISHNESS 9... od ea ee lb ocd eee 85 MNRMNATE Ze TMMLE CUSTOM «oF op hs See chasatahy dew hee Wie vlc ee ah Oe 92 PML CLA GEIYING Fo. 501,79 a8. Sie fa ot) eo Neeley earn ihes 97 POSEN RO HUECH: is. sk cle ds Sk ee wk 103 eI EACH Sere ee a, mth ie sce oe Fe ees 110 nce ascuune IneTediont. «3... 550s ec bee ess 116 RUT LAI ot 122 THE CHURCH Your. Light: .).-. 0). cS See ee ee 131 One ‘Thing Needful 0.2.2.0 oa 135 Our Task 2. cochlea Goo ho ee ee 140 Enthusiasm Without. Pletyo.! 2220s 145 Parsons’ WiVeG8 eee oe er woe tes Se 150 A'‘Gentléman’s Game. oy 24. ee eas ae ee 158 Entangling -Alliances . So Ae ae ee 164 A; Token: of: His Love. es cabs a ee 170 Rudeness:- to: Christ..7o3 ne ou i oe 176 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR The :AdventsGall ic 229) 5 Gr aoe ae oe ee 183 Christmas Observance *). (7.5.4 site, 188 Christmas “Peace: so. eho 2 ee 192 An - 2 fly «ats ees Bae 214 Waster, Fashions: 0/6. oak os ould Ban eee 220 The Great Forty (Days:-<3:........°23 eee 225 PART I RELIGION IN AMERICA Cushioned Pews E are always thanking God because of the WV sins we do not commit, whereas God is ever testing us for the things that we are try- ing to do. What the Church needs is those who serve, and what the Church gets is men who do not drink nor swear. Christ came among us as one who served, and we vo among men as those who have never disgraced ourselves. | Respectability is one thing and service is another, and the one cannot take the place of the other. A servant may be perfectly respectable and abso- lutely worthless to us, for we do not advertize for ornaments but for workers. For after all, character is a by-product of service, not to be sought directly but rather to be obtained indirectly. If you want to show your love for Christ, do some- thing in His name and your love will begin to have a reality. You are not serving a definition of God, but a Master of men, and He expects you to serve. The problem which confronts the Church is, “How can we transform a cushioned pew into a working bench?” | If we succeed we must reverse a great deal that has become custom in our comfortable parochial lounge rooms. 13 14 CUSHIONED PEWS In the first place the Church must not become a club with a recognized social status and the atmos- phere of material prosperity. The end does not justify the means, and an expen- sive program does not excuse us for adopting secular standards. I do not know who invented the cushioned pew and the parquet circle in our modern churches. When a man selects the best seats in the sanctuary because he can afford to pay for them, he forgets that God is not pleased that he should choose the higher seats. Let him, if he be a Christian, give the largest sub- scription and then, because it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, take the lowest seat. He doesn’t go to God’s House for his own comfort but for sacrifice. Sacrifice is a hard thing for him to make. In this world he has the good things; then in God’s House let him choose the hard things. Why not? For it would seem to be what his Mas- ter would have done. At least that is what He indicated when He marked those who chose the higher seats. If a prosperous man desires to make his religion real let him give much and ask little. My experience is that our wealthy members have been in the habit of giving little comparatively and demanding much relatively, to their spiritual vision. That is why the Episcopal Church has such well-ap- CUSHIONED PEWS 15 pointed parish churches and such poorly supported charitable institutions. Better have wicker chairs and well-equipped hos- pitals than cushioned pews and poorly supported institutions. In the next place let us appraise our service list. The early celebration of the Holy Communion is the most devotional service that we have and there- fore the poorest attended. It is in the quiet of the early morning; it has no mixed appeal. We go be- cause we would be with Christ; not to hear a preacher, nor a choir, nor to be seen of men. We go purely and solely to give ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a holy and living sacrifice to God which is our reasonable service. We go that we may dwell in Christ and He in us. The effort to go is a sacrifice; the effect of going is His blessing. The hour of eleven is the hour that is regarded as sacrosanct for worship on Sunday. It has become so by use. It is the time when we can get “those without” to come, so with a strange inconsistency we demand that it shall be used as a service for “those within.” Our missionary instinct is made secondary to our religious selfishness. We want a service that we will enjoy at that time so we have either Morning Prayer or a High Cele- bration. Neither of these services appeals to those without. The one is tedious; the other by its nature is for Christians only, 16 CUSHIONED PEWS Of course, if we could have a time after the sermon when non-Christians could retire, the Eucharist might be profitably used. But no! If we do that, then Christians also join the procession and turn their backs on Christ’s promised presence there. Surely it is better taste for a guest to push back his chair and leave his host and guests in the middle ef the meal when he has had enough, than for a Christian to bolt from the Lord’s Supper. The intolerable rudeness of modern Christians to the living Christ can be excused only on the ground of their invincible ignorance of good manners. But the very fact that outsiders can be induced to come to church at eleven ought to make Christians keen to have a service which is adapted to the needs of those who are ignorant of the Church’s ways, and yet which reflects the rich devotion of our in- heritance. In some way the General Convention should pro- vide a service for eleven o’clock, other than Morning Prayer which is too long and complicated, and other than the Eucharist unless it can designate the place at which the unbaptized and excommunicate may retire. And in the third place, preaching has to undergo some sort of a major operation. I do not see how a young man, trained in an academic atmosphere, full of half-digested theories and without any real experience can preach the Gos- pel acceptably to those whose problems are in the kitchen and the shop. CUSHIONED PEWS 17 Of course they could and would if they realized that they were to know Christ and Him crucified in their own spiritual combat, and then preach out of their own experience. But your young preacher is full of definitions of God, and opinions about social service, and ideas about religious education, and panaceas for reform- ing secular relations and theories of spiritual philos- ophy; so that the man on the street is neither inter- ested nor profited. For your tyro begins to preach where his theologi- cal education left off and is entirely oblivious of the fact that his congregation never has completed a the- ological training. And I do not see after he begins to preach, just when and how he is going to learn what to preach and how to do it. The world is hungry for the gospel of Christ but they are not interested in theological essays, even though the English be faultless and VE ethics com- mendable. The Christian faith needs a new emphasis in preaching and in practice. We need to learn that we are not above our Mas- ter; that He came not to be ministered unto but to minister; and that we go to church to forget self and to practice His presence. Money selfishness is mean but not any meaner than religious selfishness. The grace of Christ is like the sunlight which brings fertility to the field which has been properly prepared and therefore is in a receptive state. The 18 CUSHIONED PEWS same sunlight will bake the very next field into hard unproductiveness. It is not enough to let the sunlight in—the ground must be broken up by penitence and irrigated by the waters of life, if the seed sown is to bring forth fruit. Let us stop fooling ourselves with our religious fancies. Unless we are willing to lift up our hearts unto the Lord we must not expect His grace to be sufficient for us. Church-going is not the end of Christian practice but the beginning of Christian service. We will really give thanks unto the Lord, when we carry into the House of God, the spirit which He de- sires. And that spirit is not ‘“‘What can I get out of this service?” but “What can I give to God through this service?” It is equally true of church-going as of everything else, that he who goes to save his life will lose it, while he who goes to gain his life will find the joy and peace which come from service rendered. Figs or Thistles UR Lord had the saving grace of humor, ‘Do @ men gather grapes of thorns and figs of this- tles?” is a very whimsical question. It is a - shame that so many stupid leaders have insisted that dullness is a sign of piety and that humor is an in- strument of Satan. Satan may be cynical and even witty but Satan has no real humor. The words that we have quoted have a context that it may be well for us to observe. They follow the warning that we are to beware of false prophets, and the intimation that we shall know these false religious leaders by their fruits. The two kinds of fruits which false teachers seem to produce are those which have the spikey qualities of the thorn and the rasping quality of the thistle. He unquestionably had the Pharisees and Sad- ducees in mind when he spoke of false leaders, for they were the popular leaders of his time, so popular that they finally succeeded in crucifying the man who exposed their falsity. In the same sermon on the Mount the Lord tells us of two kinds of righteousness ;—the wrong kind and the right kind ;—the wrong kind brings the fruit of falsehood, the right kind brings the fruit that He was so laborously endeavoring to produce. (1) “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.” (2) “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His bs ae . Re a Be ae ae i at at - g 20 CUSHIONED PEWS righteousness: and all these things shall be added unto you.” It is perfectly legitimate to apply this test, which He asked us to apply, to the popular religious move- ments of today and to ask ourselves how much of our religious leadership is destined to produce thorns and thistles and is rather dubious about the value of grapes and figs. The first characteristic of these false prophets, then and now, lies in their tremendous popularity. They were backed by an innumerable company of little thorns and little thistles, which were never quite so happy as when they were pressing their ugly crown upon the Savior’s brow, or thrusting their spikey lances into His side. Neither God nor righteousness can be determined by a referendum and mere numbers do not justify & cause. The number of the names who followed the Master through it all were one hundred and twenty grapes and figs. The thorns and thistles were beyond count which same is characteristic of any badly cultivated field. Neither does the rasping assurance of thorns and thistles overweigh in God’s sight those who practice His righteousness in secret as they were bidden. “Tf you keep the outside of the platter clean by a certain abstinence from non-respectable sins you can fool the people into thinking that there is no unclean- ness inside. Popularity is no sign of virtue. The motive of Pharisaic righteousness is to justify FIGS OR THISTLES 21 oneself and its concomitant quality is to despise others. The Pharisees and Sadducees could not endure contradiction, any more than the extreme partisans in the Church or out of it today can endure contra- diction or rebuke. Is is characteristic of both the high Pharisee and the broad Sadducee that they despise those who differ from them and bitterly resent those in authority who would curb their dogmatic utterances either for or against the tradition of their fathers. Whenever you find petulance or cynical anathemas you may be certain of that mind which St. Luke describes in the following language, “And as He said these things unto them the Scribes and Pharisees began to urge Him vehemently, and to provoke Him to speak of many things; laying wait for Him and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him.” These ancient Pharisees believed in making men righteous by legislative enactments; and the Sad- ducees sought the same end by daring speculative assertions. They were utterly oblivious to the graciousness of Christ and loudly invoked that righteousness which was by the law, or else tried to break down men’s faith by airing their own doubts and speculations. Both Pharisee and Sadducee were adepts in sub- stituting the laws or opinions of men for the law of God. They were like many of our sectarian ministers 29 CUSHIONED PEWS today who loudly proclaim against the use of wine, while they deliberately remarry people against the expressed law of Christ. If this isn’t straining at gnats and swallowing camels, it is a piece of glaring inconsistency. | | It seems to have no weight with them that Christ said that he who marrieth her that is divorced com- mitteth adultery. Modern Pharisaism is like the ancient thorn in that it scolds those sinners who sin against the flesh, toward whom Christ was conspicuously kind and tender, and are indifferent to those who commit meanness under the protection of the law. Pharisees invoked prejudice against the sweet rea- sonableness of Christ, and today large religious bodies sanction a secret order which commits acts of intolerable meanness and cowardly cruelty in order, they say, that God may be justified. Whatever may be the marks of Christ, they are not the marks of the Pharisee or the Sadducee. He did not appeal to prejudice nor philosophy. He was kind toward those who differed from Him in their religi- ous views. | He frankly told the Samaritans that “they wor- shipped they knew not what,’ and then compli- mented them on their individual acts of merey and gratitude. He could see good in the inveterate enemies of His religion. He was compassionate toward those who were the victims of fleshly sins and rebuked the elder brother FIGS OR THISTLES 23 who was a glaring instance of harsh _ intoler- ance. He was extremely severe to those of His own company who failed Him in their loyalty and com- prehension, but He could forgive those who crucified Him for they knew not what they did. American Christianity needs sorely to cultivate its grapes and figs and to get rid of its spikey qualities. Its greatest lack today is not theological compre- hension but wholesome fellowship which will attract the common people, even if it loses the wise and mighty. The Church was never advanced merely by its “wisdom after the flesh,’ nor by its “itching after the dollar,’ but solely by its ability to preach the whole gospel of Christ as it has received the same, with the compassion of Christ toward sinners and His accessibility to the fellowship of the ordinary man. Somehow the Church lacks flexibility in its invita- tion to those without. Some attribute this to the fact that common men : cannot accept this or that doctrine, but would come into the Church if the bars were let down in doctrinal requirements. Others think that the Church should come out more openly for law enforcement and civic interests. I do not think so. What is needed is to acquire more graciousness and less stiffness of manners; more fellowship and less of the exclusive caste; more human touch and less ecclesiastical manners; more kindliness and less self consciousness. 24 CUSHIONED PEWS The most far reaching and permanent results are attained when men can combine a definiteness of re- ligious conviction with an attitude of cordial kindli- ness toward all men. It was characteristic of the Christ that He could tell the Samaritan: “You worship you know not what,” and yet win the Samaritan to His person. Christ did not water down his assertions to please the intellectuals of his day. Rather he allowed the intellectauals to pass Him by while He sought for those who needed Him. Because you say “I know” therefore your sin re- maineth but to those who said, “I sin,” He forgave the sinner and inspired him with a new purpose. The Church could afford to ignore the whole group of intellectuals, if it only could learn how to be so attractive to sinners that the common people would hear her gladly. Stalactites and Stalagmites GOOD deal that we read would seem to indi- A cate that the Church of the past was in some way inadequate for the people of the pres- ent, whereas, I cannot help feeling that the people of the present are somewhat inadequate for the treas- ure that they have inherited. Somehow, spending a million dollars on a prize fight intensifies that feeling. An organization which has produced such chil- dren of God as the Church has produced in every generation can still produce their like, if it can find the material out of which saints are developed. The difficulty today is that the age is not inter- ested in producing saints, but is concerned in solv- ing problems, whereas Jesus Christ was not disposed to solve problematical mysteries, but to make saints cut of all sorts of queer materials. The woman of the town was not a problem for Christ to solve by the aid of a clinic, an executive secretary and a checkbook; neither was she a social problem which He proposed to card index. The wo- man of the town was a sinner to whom He offered His own personal sympathy and help; if she ac- cepted His grace, she became a new creature; if she rejected His proffer to help, she died in her sins. Capital and labor were abstract questions which He left to academic philosophers, while He made His appeal to the rich young man who went away sorrowful, because he could not make the sacrifice 25 26 CUSHIONED PEWS which Christ suggested; and called the laboring man from his nets to follow Him. The work of the ministry is not, I fancy, essen- tially different since the disciple still is as his Mas- ter. The real sign of efficiency in the Christian pastor is still the personal note rather than the academic theory of how things ought to be done. Many otf our clergy may be men of quite ordinary talents, of rather ineffective methods and of somewhat ancient ideas, but their really Christian characteristic is that they persevere in holding up a very high ideal of worship and service to a very perverse generar tion. In some ways it is rather tragic to be a bishop in the United States. One sees so much from the vantage point of his high place. One is not im- pressed with the fact that vestries who are seeking pastors are so much concerned with spiritual qual- ities of human sympathy, personal holiness and de- vout habits as they are with the more mundane and more superficial characteristics of mixing, persone appearance and cultural manners. The Church is one of two things: It is either something sent down from above or else it is some- thing built up by human ingenuity. Of course, in a sense, it is both, but to use the simile of stalactites and stalagmites in a cave—the one is from above, the other built up from below, but the initiative is from above and the stalagmites are the result of drippings from the stalactites, never the reverse. STALACTITES AND STALAGMITES 27 Now, as I see religion, the Church came before the sects and the sects are in a sense stalagmites. And they possess one great advantage over the Church. They are nearer the earth. Consequently, the sectarian leader has the advantage of being just a little higher than the cave dwellers. If you will note the leader of any sectarian body, he is standing for just the sort of thing that his peo- ple want. His leadership and their prejudices are -a unit. To follow him is easy, for he visualizes to them that which they would build. It is not so much, “‘Set me upon the Rock that is higher than I,” as it is, bring the Rock down to where I can step on it without much effort. | Whatever certain secularly minded ministers of this Church may say, the whole idea of the Church as embodied in her creeds, liturgies and formularies is that grace is from above and man may be lifted up by it, but he may not make of it a mere earthly process. One asks why so many of our ministers desire to take the supernatural out of the Church, and why they do not want to leave the Church in order to propound their theories? The answer is simple: They know the ephemeral character of mere human institutions. They know that stalagmites do not grow without stalactites to infuse them. So they desire the stable character of a divine institution which has been built up and pre- served by belief in the supernatural in order to give a solidarity to the ideas which would deprive the 28 CUSHIONED PEWS gospel of all supernatural grace. In other words, they desire to use the labors of a long line of stal- actites in order to create stalagmites that they claim to be just as wonderful. But they are not. In a contest between the two for beauty, the stalagmite is hopelessly outclassed. It is important always to remember, on listening to their plausible theories, that such theories are and have always been unable to grow unless they depend upon a supernatural background for their existence. Truly, the law came by Moses and he may have learned a good deal of it from Egyptian sources, but erace came by Jesus Christ and no man has been able to furnish a substitute. This factor, however, has its effect in the Church. The man who rejects the supernatural has the ad- vantage of getting all his drippings from the stal- actites and yet remaining close to the earth. In other words, it is mighty easy for a priest of the Church who believes very little and yet looks like any other priest to get the close following of laymen who believe very little and are satisfied with appearances. : It is this factor which separates a good many of eur clergy from the close discipleship of the bulk of the laity. And in this the Church is unique. It also separated the laity from following our Lord. So long as He healed people and told them para- bles and fed them they followed him in large num- bers. When He began to say, “Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter the STALACTITES AND STALAGMITES 29 kingdom of heaven,” they asked, as did Nicodemus, “How can these things be?” So long as He gave them the loaves and fishes they flocked to Him, but when He said, “Except a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he hath no life in him,” then many walked no more with Him and His discipleship dwindled from that time on. People are not prone to build up their Christian character by the industrious process of receiving His grace. They either want God to convert them by a sudden miracle, or else they want to build their own towers to heaven. I have known many of these priests who boast that they do not believe in the supernatural char- acter of grace. They are good companions in the easy reaches of life, in the drawing room, on the golf course, or anywhere on a nice summer day. They are fairly well up in solving the problems of life in the abstract, but are rather incapable of un- derstanding the mystery of poverty or the grace of speaking to the individual who is in trouble; they are rather dumb before the mysteries of sickness and death. To them, religion is a cultural rather than a re- generating process; sin is something which is bad form; death is a puzzle that had best be dealt with by euphemisms. It is not strange that prosperous people think of eternal life as merely a continuation of their present prosperity, but God forbid that heaven should be a confirmation of the cultural smugness which char. BOM CUSHIONED PEWS acterizes earthly prosperity and the tragic inequal- ities which is so characteristic of our industrial system. But the way out is not to rail at the system, but to regenerate the individuals who otherwise would ruin the best system which mind could create. Now, regeneration is something which comes from the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, and it is our privilege as Christians to receive the grace that we perceive has come from the body of Christ in all ages. The only saving clause in the world as we may know it may be found by a close study of the parable of Dives and Lazarus, in which God steps in and fixes the compensation. Sects and Insects IME was when society was shaken to its foundations by religious controversy. Re- ligion was the one vital issue. The great parish church was the outstanding building in the community ; the rector was the parson, or the person, to whom the people turned for help and counsel; the service at the high altar was the great event of the week and the anathema of the Church was more dreaded by princes than was the revolt of the people. Unquestionably men abused the privileges of their high office, and prelates were not always distin- guished by humility or spirituality. Then arose certain men who disputed with these great men as to their credentials, and there was war in the Kingdom of God. The prophet rose up against the priest and the power of the Church was broken. The principle of strife and dissension replaced that of confident assertion. Great sects arose, which agreed neither with the Church, not with one another. Calvin and Luther and Zwingle put forth their confessions of faith, and the world rejoiced because the Church was no longer the dominant force that it had been. Not that the world fared any better. With all of its faults, the Church was a lenient landlord and she was ever kindly to the poor. Her leaders were but men, and when those men who were born to leadership, threw off the mantle of 31 o2 CUSHIONED PEWS religion, they became even less kindly and more brutal than they were before. Under the Georges, England was still ruled by men, irreligious men, and the sordid brutality of the times was unrelieved by pious princes or kindly priests. And after the Georges came the age of Saurian corporations and Simian aristocracy and _ sordid politicians. In truth, the world was still ruled by men and the absence of religious domination did not produce more kindly masters nor more contented masses. The sects went their way and soon fell into ae habits which they had dethroned. The post-reformation period did not produce kind- ly pastors or charitable courtesy. After all, whether the world leaders have been Christians, Turks, Atheists, Sectarians, or Politi- cians, they have all been men and have in their day, illustrated the principle that “man being in honor hath no understanding but is compared to the beasts that perish.” When we say that the Church was to blame or the state was to blame, or the sect was to blame, it isn’t so. We are merely assuming an alibi for the real culprit. Man is to blame — selfish, sinful, silly man, who ignores God and deceives himself. Whether he be priest, preacher, professor, politi- cian, or prince, he is prone to be a tyrant when he finds himself clothed with power. Having found the guilty man, let us see what has SECTS AND INSECTS 33 happened. When the Church was a big thing it pro- duced big men. They may not always have been kindly men, but there were kindly men among the host that filled the churches. It would be hard to find a St. Francis today; it might be worth while to put up with an occasional pompous prelate if we only could produce the other thing as well., There have always been plenty of honest men and virtuous women and beautiful children in every age, thank God; but there haven’t always been big men and there haven’t always been great saints. These are worth as long a journey as to the Yellowstone to see. It is almost a truism to say that when the Church ceased to be big, the Christian world began to be little. é Each sect, being a fraction of the whole, attracted to leadership men who were proper fractions. For a sect is a segment of the whole, and the whole is greater than any of its parts. But the principle of subdivision went on indefi- nitely until the sects became smaller and smaller, and men’s vision grew pettier and pettier. The grace of God became confined to a small sec- tion of the civilized world, or the truth of God to a small segment of the whole truth; and the Church which had been hated, usually by wicked men, be- cause it was big and powerful, now came to be de- spised, often by decent men, because it was small and petty. 34 CUSHIONED PEWS This process of devolution has continued until the spirit of the sect has become the spirit of the insect, and the world is filled with small folks, who buzz and bite and poison; they infuriate large mammals and destroy the charms of a peaceful valley. Formerly Church leaders went out valiantly to battle with lions. Now one hesitates to assume lead- eership in either Church or state because these bands of insects buzz around the head of the vulnerable hunter. And many a man will go out against large game who is powerless to protect himself against klans of insects. A big hunter told me once that he would like to visit the headwaters of the Amazon, but he couldn’t put up with the chiggers, for they had invalided him on a previous trip for several years. The situation reminds me of an anecdote of Sam Jgones: He had gone to hold a revival in a large Canadian city, but the revival lacked pep. He could not account for the failure of the thing to go until he discovered that certain local leaders had spread the information that Sam smoked, and because of this foible in his character, they refused to be charmed by his elo- quence. Whereupon, Sam told the following fable at the next revival meeting: “Once upon a time, as a traveler in the far west approached a certain village, he met several big bears carrying little children off to their dens. He was intensely excited, and when he arrived at the SECTS AND INSECTS 35 village, was met by the fathers of the children, just returning from a squirrel hunt. Whereupon, he be- rated them roundly for their callous indifference to the loss of their children. Their reply was that they would like to go and kill the bears, but unfortunately the only weapons which they possessed were squirrel guns, so they must content themselves with shooting squirrels, while the bears continued their depreda- tions.” “These villagers,’ said Mr. Jones, “are like the leaders in this revival. You have nothing bigger than squirrel guns, so you go out to shoot my peccadiloes, while the children of the city are being carried off to dens of vice.” | The political and religious atmosphere today is full of swarms of petty people, whose sole claim to virtue consists in their ability to sting the man who is trying to accomplish something. It ought to be evident to the smallest mind that one cannot produce character in one’s self by de- stroying it in others. The consciousness of our own sins should cause us to be charitable toward the faults of others, and to be kind and helpful to sin- ners. When Christians forget to be kindly they cease to fulfill the law of Christ. But when people become petty they cease to be kindly. Malicious assertions about men who are trying to do big things is the order of the day, and it is based upon a failure to grasp the bigness of Christ’s gos- 36 CUSHIONED PEWS pel, which was not so much concerned with the faults of the sinner as it was with the kindliness of the saint. The Pharisee who posed as a pious man was lack- ing in that very thing. The Christian world lacks it today. It lacks the grace of charity and it lacks it be- cause charity can be developed only in a large room and the Christian body is cut up into small compart- ments. The sect spirit makes for zeal and destroys charity. The mosquito is zealous, but most pestiferous. The Big and Little in Religion ELIGION is really a big thing, but when a R little mind is confronted with a big thing, it bites off only a small chunk of the whole, and that which was a big thing goes on its way, while the morsel becomes the big thing to the little mind. Religion has much to do with various things. It is infinite in its diversity. It has been the motive power for many things. It has promoted education, philanthropy, social service, lodges, cults, philosophies and other movements. It has concerned itself with prophecy, healing, spirit rapping, telepathy, and other wonders. In the hands of Mohammedans it has sanctified many wives and much slaughter, and in the hands of the Mormon many wives and much business sagacity. The man who is self-seeking can invoke religion to gratify his lust, slay his enemies, fill his pocket or cure his ills. The man who lives in an academic world can give a philosophic turn to his religion or a religious turn to his philosophy, and so discover a new religion. The man who does big business can invoke religion to protect his dividends and the man who works by the day can curse religion because it does not increase his wages. Religion is elemental. It is like air and fire and water. With these elements one can sail his craft into the harbor where he would be, and with the 37 38 CUSHIONED PEWS same elements he can destroy his ship and be engulfed in the very element by which he plies his trade. The man who is prosperous can use religion to | embalm his conscience and the man who is down on his luck can secure religious charms with which to dispel his misfortune. | | The man who is well can ignore religion so long as he has a good appetite, and the man who is ill can become religious to aid his digestion. Yet religion is the same potent, kindly force which Christ sanctified. It still has force to make us friends with God; to replace hatred for personal enemies with love for those who have despitefully used us; and to inspire sinners with a longing to be clean. Like fire, it has power to illuminate the under- standing; enkindle the affections; energize the will, and burn out the dross. Like fire, it may also derange the mind; consume love; scotch the will and burn up the most valuable ~ of our possessions. Like fire, it must be watched, confined, guided, directed, and it will warm men into friendliness and contentment; but like fire it may become a devastat- ing conflagration, destroying the valuables of life as well as its refuse. Religion has made men saints and hypocrites; has lit the fires of hospitality and the inquisition; has built up Jerusalem and devastated Smyrna. It has produced Christ and Judas; St. Francis and Torque- mada; Allenby and Kaiser Wilhelm. In other words, religion is a force which, like all other forces, man THE BIG AND LITTLE IN RELIGION 39 may use for his development or for his destruction; for his redemption or for his judgment. The mother who has seen her child scorched by fire loves not the fire; but the cold, hungry, lonesome traveler loves a fire-place. After all, things ought never to be condemned be- cause of our own personal experience, but rather on the broader ground of their benevolent purpose. So a man should not condemn religion because he has been swindled by a hypocrite, but rather should praise religion because it has given a Christ to the world. It is only thus that we can find the way that leadeth to eternal life. The world is full of many ills and many blessings. You may dwell on its wrongs or its blessing and you yourself will become darkness or light to those who look to you for blessing and find in you what you have found in the world. Elemental things are realities, but they do not change their nature to suit our moods. God gives us a force in religion and we seem to think we can treat it merely as a sentiment. The average man dislikes to think and loves to feel. We want thrills, impressions, emotions, and so we frequent the movies, sing jazz songs, and give bizarre entertainments. Those who have the money to spend seek to find satisfaction in creating the impression that they are prosperous, while they are grumbling at the size of their bills and the lack of satisfaction that they get out of life. Prosperous people, therefore, grow blase, 40 CUSHIONED PEWS stodgy, dull, because they foolishly think that joy can be purchased with money. . A little soul cannot be a big man because it has the temporary power of spending much money, nor can such a soul expect to experience big ee after the money has been spent. In the same way the bigness of religion is limited by the size of the soul that comes in contact with it. As we have intimated, it usually takes a bite, gets an impression and runs eagerly away with the mor- sel, thinking that it has captured the prize. Religion can make men big, but it also can make them petty; and when one has persuaded himself that “the sky is falling’? because he has been hit by a raindrop, he has helped to make religion ridiculous. Let us endeavor to study the dimensions of Christ and then bring our own life into comparison with those dimensions. We may fail to do much, but that which we attempt will be on a scale commensurate with the Gospel. It will at least make us humble instead of making us petty. There is a great difference. The Mean and Generous in Religion A eres is nothing more tragic in life than to have a mean little man in a place of big oppor- tunities. It is much better for all concerned to have a big wicked man in such a place. The spiritual interests of this country have suffered more from the meanness of Christians than from the wickedness of sinners. For a mean Christian not only fails to let his own light shine, but he so misrepresents Christ to those without that he alienates the sinner with a big heart from the household of faith. If Christians are like that he will have none of it. This tendency to mean- ness is, I am afraid, one of the temptations of re- ligious people. | They become attached to Christ because they want to save their own souls and this seems to beget in them a saving disposition. They want to save everything else besides their souls. These economical Christians remind me of the man who was so saving that he declined to give anything to the Church at all. He based his abstinence from giving on the ground that it did not cost the thief on the cross anything and he was assured of Paradise. “The difference between you and the thief on the cross,” said the indignant solicitor, ‘‘is that he was a dying thief and you are a living one.” The thief on the cross had nothing to give and the Lord accepted nothing. Al 42 CUSHIONED PEWS The poor widow who gave her mite gave little in the aggregate but the Lord gave her unlimited credit in Heaven. The rich man clothed in purple and fine linen had much but he did with it as he chose and he woke up in absolute destitution. . Judas tried to use our Lord for business purposes and he finally went out and hanged himself, and there wasn’t much to hang when he did it. | As I was writing this on the train, I overheard a Mexican in overalls delivering his philosophy to the Newsboy. He said in his broken accent, which I will not at- tempt to repeat: “In my life I have sometimes been bad and I have sometimes been good, but the only way to live is to keep on trying to be good—it is the only way in which you can win out. “If a man wants to live to make money, he can make money, but he was born without any clothes and when he dies he takes no more with him than he had when he was born. He cannot win out unless he tries to do right.” Truly one hears wisdom from unexpected sources. It was only the other day on another train, that a young man who is a country school teacher said to me: “The mistake in our educational system in America is that a boy has a head, a hand and a heart, and the boy’s hearts gets too little attention.” I wish some of the professors in our great univer- sities could sit at this country boy’s feet; they would learn something that they hitherto have missed. THE MEAN AND GENEROUS IN RELIGION 43 To train a man’s head and hand without training his heart is to train a mean man, in most instances. What is meanness? It would seem to have been derived etymologically from the word “me,” and to describe the spiritual conviction of those who gave a selfish interpretation to the first commandment which might be paraphrased to read: “I will not have any other God but me,” and in this sense they worship the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and mind, and because their God is a very little God, they come out of the game of life with a very little heart and a very little mind and a very little soul. For no man who worships himself can ever grow to be any bigger than himself. Now many a man who thinks he is a Christian is really ignoring Christ in this world with a vague sort of hope that Christ will reward him in the next. I am sure that Christ will reward him just as he de- serves. But all meanness is not money-meanness. That is perhaps the most evident and also the most sordid. A stingy Christian is such an evident hoax. If we are a petty person, then we will have mean opinions about God and our God will be as meanly opinionated as we are. It is a strange contradiction of terms but it is not _infrequent to find mean persons who will be prodigal in financing a mean religion. The difficulty in the average community is to find enough generous people to support a generous re- ligion. 44 CUSHIONED PEWS Some narrow partisan will give money profusely to propagate a religion which justifies his own petti- ness and helps to belittle the big generous vision of the Lord Jesus. } That is one of the greatest troubles in America. Mean people have appropriated the gospel of Christ and are using it for the purpose of propagating a religion that might have been put forth by the Phari- sees themselves. And these evangelists of religious meanness are as bitter and intclerant of anyone who dares to differ with their petty principles as ever were the Phari- sees when Christ broke their Sabbath day by rub- bing wheat in his hands as he passed through a field of grain. There are those who feel that unless the Church is achieving numerical results we are wasting money in helping to finance it. In this particular religion . is like art. The success of the Church in any com- munity is directly in proportion to the proportion of people who abhor meanness, especially in themselves. This reduces the available material in some very prosperous communities to a very small ratio. There are plenty of petty reHgions in the field to satisfy the people of little vision. And if they can satisfy their own meanness why seek further? The Church has a difficult task, especially in the smaller towns and villages to compete with those re- ligions which are content to send men of small eali- ber to be prophets to little souls. These petty proph- ets frequently have great success where a true THE MEAN AND GENEROUS IN RELIGION 45 prophet having a real message would receive a proph- et’s reward. Christ ever sought out generous souls and when He found them, He rejoiced greatly even if they were Samaritans or sinners. There must be generous natures for Christ to find satisfactory disciples. It is the epidemic of petty selfishness which is to be found today in high places which makes it so hard to secure a decent world. As one studies the leading figures in English and American politics and compares them with the states- men of the past, one is forced to admit that their personal morals are much better but their political visions are much smaller than their predecessors. One despairs of men who trim down every issue to its political assets. In my judgment, it was petty politicians who produced the war. When we put a pious two by four in a position of responsibility he is sure to break under the strain. The little man in a big place is always sure to have two reactions. He is tremendously impressed with his own importance and he is very uncomfortable if his assistants know more than he does. The Master had a great vision and there have been eras in which men have caught something of it, but as a rule men have been too little rather than too wicked to accept it. “That ye may be able to comprehend,” was the prayer of St. Paul, for if men are not able to compre- hend the dimensions of Christ, they will never strive to attain the measure of His stature. We live ina 46 CUSHIONED PEWS society which is obsessed with the value of petty mor- als but is oblivious to the fact that Christ was a prophet of big dimensions. I am more than satisfied that the message of this Church is good enough for us—I am not sure that we are big enough for it. We prefer some little society in which the village barber can become an imperial potentate and the undertaker can be an exalted ruler. And we fancy that we are a democratic country and a Christian one. Not that anyone objects to these or any other re- spectable citizen amusing themselves with these titles of the past, but the horror is that they should seri- cusly regard it as a worthy substitute for the religion of Jesus Christ. The Lord of Flies T IS atmosphere that really makes the Church | or the home. It is this atmosphere which chil- dren breathe into their subconscious selves and and it comes out in their ultimate character. Now the sins of the home and the Church are not apt to be flagrant sins but rather an innumerable company of petty sins which poison the contentment that might otherwise abide there. We do not expect to find lions or tigers in the home but we are used to gnats and flies which can be very irritating, although not so immediately fatal as the larger beasts. It must have been someone with a saving sense of humor who called the devil Beelzebub, which means “Lord of flies.’ That is just the role he takes when he enters the home and you can hear the buzzing of his innumer- able satellites as father complains about the multi- tude of bills, and mother about the scarcity of com- forts, and brother about his inconvenient chores, and sister about her dilapitated clothes. _ Satan has entered in, contentment has gone out and the flies settle down industriously at their task of disturbing peace and defiling the white linen of righteousness. I know excellent parents who really love their chil- dren and want them to grow up to be good men and women who are serenely unconscious that flies are sources of fatal infection. 47 48 CUSHIONED PEWS To sit during one’s youth at meals where members of the community are discussed and neighbors crit- icized; to participate in the buzzing murmurs of various members of the family about various com- plaints; to nag and to be nagged at sundry and vari- — ous times is to grow up in an atmosphere of envy, malice and all uncharitableness. What is needed in such homes is to put on screens which will keep out noxious insects, or in other word to keep a watch on the door of the tongue. Moreover, it is a significant fact that will bear meditation, if one considers that those who criticize others most are not those who are the most virtuous themselves. People who do not lift their finger to help any one else will complain bitterly that they themselves are being neglected. How often have I been told by some injured soul that they have been in the parish for so many years and no one has called on them. And when I have said in reply, “That’s so, you have been in the parish a long time, how many newcomers have you called on?” they not only look surprised but injured. It is frequently the case that people who are quick to detect sin in others, are expert because they are so familiar with that same sin in themselves. There is a sign one sees occasionally, “Watch your step!’ when there is a pitfall to be avoided. I never did like mottoes but there is one that might be hung over the door of our homes, “Watch your tongue!’’ Another form of this disease which destroys con- THE LORD OF FLIES 49 tentment is the habit that so many have of criticizing the Church as though it were something foreign to themselves in which they have no corporate respon- sibility. “The Church does this or doesn’t do that.” “They fail to do this or they fail to do that.” The impersonal pronoun of responsibility is the alibi of irresponsible folk. Doing little or nothing themselves they fault the failure of those who are at least trying to do some- thing. I have seldom heard those who were really work- ing hard for the Church, indulge in those accusa- tions. They love the Church too well to criticize. Nor is it those who are giving largely. It is the shirker and the evader who talk to create an alibi. After all it is the habit of murmuring which is self-intoxicating. It is like rheumatic pain. It shows an accumula- tion of spiritual infection somewhere in the system. — Better have an X-ray to locate the pus-pocket. What the critic needs is not painful words but self- examination and confession. The root of bitterness is not in the object of their _ criticism but in themselves. If they will purify their own spiritual system, they will be peace-makers and not disturbers of the peace. If they would say more prayers for their neighbors and themselves, they would use their tongues to bet- ter advantage than they do in their floods of criticism. 50 CUSHIONED PEWS I do not know what Heaven is but I am sure it is not a large place where critics abound and where murmuring is tolerated. And especially it is not a place where the same individual is judge and prosecuting attorney. I am very sure of one thing, and that is—God never intended a man to judge his neighbor when his own interests are involved. If you are the plaintiff or the defendant you can- not also be the judge and render the verdict. But that is what murmurers claim. I have been injured or insulted. My neighbor is a sinner. I am the judge. The verdict is that they shall be banished from my presence henceforth. Silly! All you do is to deceive your self into think- ing that your ex parte judgment is a valid decision. It will be ruled out of court on the ground of preju- dice. It is true that there are many disagreeable people ~ in the world. Just remember that you are one of them, and that is why you are to forgive others as you hope to be forgiven; and if you insist that those who owe you a few pence shall pay you to the last farthing, then don’t be surprised if your big debt to God is running into the millions. He has told us plainly that He will not forgive unless we do; that He will not bless us unless we bless others; that if we insist on complaining, we will have some real cause for complaint before we are through. THE LORD OF FLIES 51 After all, we are either instruments of grace or else stumbling blocks. And we do not discharge our duty to God by com- plaining about His Church and we do not absolve ourselves from condemnation by being expert in our criticism of others. Murmur not but give praise, for so you will do vour share in witnessing Christ to men. The Two Per Cents ET us study the law of averages for a few min- L utes; it may help us to solve the problem of life. Let us suppose that there are one hun- dred million humans in the United States. That is a lot of people. But the Creator has always been prodi- gal of quantity. He has made so many planets that the mind of man cannot count them. What then is a mere planet to the Creator? It is no more than a nickel is to a millionaire. On one of these planets which we call the world, He has manufactured things of innumer- able kinds in such proportion that figures would cease to mean anything if they were counted. Among these countless things he has made men, and made them by the billion, of all colors, shapes and fashions. You and I are each one of these in- significant creatures, so insignificant that if you were to express the insignificance by a fraction, it would 1 500,000,000,000, say the least isn’t much to get excited over. You can dress up this numerator in silks or uni- forms, or you can clothe it in rags and it doesn’t materially affect the terms of the fraction. Perhaps the marvel is simply this—that there should be so many of these minute atoms and that I should be one of them. Viewed merely as things, the universe has about 52 look something like this which to THE TWO PER CENTS 53 as much cohesion as the catalogue of a mail-order house. It is inconceivable that the mind which could cre- ate such an enormous quantity of multudinous things should have had no moral purpose in it all. This would be to imply that the Creator is a tal- ented lunatic which is also inconceivable. True it is, that there are certain of these innumer- able numerators who tell you with a profound pity for your invincible ignorance that they are searching for the purpose of it all, by finding the origin of: it all. Personally, I am exceedingly dumb, I admit it. I don’t see for the life of me, how we are going to answer the question, “What for?” by solving the question, “Where from?” Supposing that we all started from a monkey, a clam or a pumpikn seed; that doesn’t throw any light upon our destiny. Let us suppose that the Creator has an apprecia- tion for quality as well as for quantity. There are reasons for supposing that this has something to do with the problem. Let us take the simple art of making money. Nine- _ty-eight per cent of the wealth of this country, if it came to a show down, is controlled by about two per cent of the population. If that two per cent should die tomorrow and take their wealth with them to Heaven, or elsewhere, the United States would become an enormous poor farm. Something like that happened in Russia. All the wealth in Russia was either impounded or dispersed 54 CUSHIONED PEWS by a little group of self-constituted financiers, and. people find that there is mighty little to eat. Of course the theory is the other way. Most theories are, but theorists are poor cooks as a rule. The ninety-eight per cent have an idea that if some- how they could sandbag the two percent, then the desert would blossom as the rose. Nothing like it. We could have another two per cent, a little less intelligent and far less bountiful than the present two per cent. That is a law of averages which is as accurate as the mortality tables of an insurance company. You can legislate away the tables, but you will for- feit your insurance when your family needs it. Moreover it is not an accident that the two per cent who control the money should be the same two per cent, roughly speaking, who set the pace in soci- ety; so-called because it isn’t very sociable. In the first place they have the money to pay the bills of social vanity, and in the second place they actually have what most of the 98 per cent want, and so they have the respect of desire. They are as much of an American nobility as money can make for that which is noble. Society is dull, not because it needs to be dull, but because people who are financially sharp are apt to be dull along other lines,— not individually of course, but the heavier the millionaire the more weight he carries. Now there is another two percent to consider. Possibly there are two million people in the United States who really think. THE TWO PER CENTS 55 Civilization is that state of society in which each man does one thing and hires the rest done for him. This is as true of thinking as it is of shoe-making. As one person has well put it, the rest do not think, they merely think that they are thinking and some others refuse to think at all. Sheep do not think. Others think for them and pull the wool over their eyes, and it is just as well that they do, for otherwise the sheep would either lose both the wool and the eyes, or else go off and live in some isolated mountains, where nobody else could live or wanted to. As long as sheep herd in green pastures they re- quire shepherds, which same is much harder on the shepherd than on the sheep; for while the sheep live they have plenty to eat and grow fat, but the shep- herd is apt to grow crazy. Of course this isn’t complimentary to the human race and it irritates those who advocate the rights of man. I am not advocating it as a program; merely calling attention to it as the law of averages. Now do not think that these thinking shepherds get the wool. No! the wool goes to those who own the sheep. The shepherds get a salary as a rule. I was told the other day by a man whose knowledge of finance is pro- found, (mine is not—I have never had the chance to develop it) ; that most wealthy men owe their wealth to the intelligence of their subordinates. That is what he called them, not I. In other words the two two per cent classes do not 56 CUSHIONED PEWS necessarily consist of the same persons. Then there is another two per cent of American humans who are virtuous. I do not mean those whose virtues require the lime- light. I mean those who practice virtue because they have to live with themselves and prefer to move in deeent society. Or perhaps better, those who love Jesus Christ, have a profound impression that He knows what is in man, and are desirous that He find nothing in them that He would refuse to associate with. This particular two per cent is handicapped by the fact that it is forbidden by the Master to advertize. This is a great handicap in our very commercialized civilization. Such a handicap that many people, who are other- wise virtuous, cannot resist proclaiming the fact and thereby subject their virtues to a hardening process. For virtue is very like one’s hands, easily calloused. A callous is tender only when touched; it is not ten- der to those who grasp it. Honorable perhaps but hard. | And so we might ramble on with our two per cents. There are these in art, music, baseball, pugilism, handling horses, playing politics, doing the work of the Church, practicing medicine or patriotism. About two per cent in each class. Now what has all this to do with God’s world? Much the same as it has to do with a college educa- — tion. Here too we have great quantities of young men who shine socially, athletically, lethargically, but the THE TWO PER CENTS 57 college couldn’t justify its existence if it wasn’t for the two per cent who study. I am inclined to think that you will find God’s rea- son for the world, not in some antique protoplasm from which it starts, but rather in the two per cent (if that is the percentage) who seek God’s purpose and find it. Whether you care to belong to this par- ticular two per cent will depend upon your treasure, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. This two per cent Isaiah calls “‘the remnant” and the Master refers to it when he says “few there be that find it.” We are a quantitative people. We love to have the biggest Church, or theater, or population or bank deposits of any city in the world. That completes our happiness. But I fancy God isn’t interested in our bigness. It is not the bigness of the mountain but the purity of the gem which the mountain conceals that delights the Creator. Mere obesity isn’t a virtue. Mere quantity of things cannot make a mean man anything but a mean man. If you really want to change this fraction, don’t fuss much with the numerator. That will remain about as it is. Seek a smaller denominator and you will have a much larger fraction. Better be numbered with the qualitative few than with the quantitative multitude. 58 CUSHIONED PEWS It is your denominator that really tells into how many parts the whole is divided. It is hopeless to change the numerator into a super- one. Better seek that division into parts which appeals to your imagination and then put yourself bravely on that foundation. The Joyousness of Living ISCIPLESHIP of our Lord is more an attitude 1D of heart and mind than it is either a state of respectability or a record of achievement. We must take God’s own method of revealing Him- self to us if we would thoroughly test this. It is as though a man of great position and wealth wished to test the loyalty of his friends, and so, clothing himself in poverty and throwing around himself the cloak of seeming failure, he goes to his onetime friends for their help and comfort. In reality he is as prosperous as ever, but he seems to be insolvent that he may test all those professions of friendship which he has received in the high estate which he has attained, He even allows himself to become an object of ridicule and contempt and does many things which are not the way in which they are done in the best circles. He puts on the livery of poverty and walks in ways that seem eccentric and permits diverse humil- iations to be heaped upon him. Surely he separates those who love him from those who use him, and those who will suffer with him from those who merely would prosper with him. So Christ tested humanity down to the last man— He tried out the twelve who had been with Him when He was loved and admired of men because of His mighty works, and He permitted them to deny 59 60 CUSHIONED PEWS Him and to desert Him when He reached the bottom of His humiliation. He scaled His friends down to St. John and the Marys and then received back St. Peter with the words that must have revived sad memories—‘“Si- mon, lovest thou me?” I think it is fair to say that our Christian fellow- ship is more an attitude of the heart and mind than a matter of respectability and achievement. Neither the beggar at the rich man’s gate, nor the fallen woman in Simon’s doorway, nor she who gave the two farthings, nor he who was crucified beside Him could boast much of either respectability or achievement, but they were all forgiven much, be- cause they loved much. And the measure of their love was that none of these were ashamed of that love when others de- rided it. Love is something which will not bear statistical investigation and cannot be recorded in a parochial year book. It is not necessarily associated with culture, moc: als or orthodoxy. It is the attitude of heart and mind which causes a human soul to count all else but loss. It is a force that can constrain the outcast and the criminal to climb mountains of transfiguration reckless of privations. _ It is a force that is true to Christ when all others fall away and hangs on to the cross even when the power of God seemingly has failed. THE JOYOUSNESS OF LIVING 61 It has been the most persistent, aggressive motive that has ever stimulated men to spread the gospel of human kindness. It is the one thing needful in our personal con- tact to make the religion of Christ an irresistible ‘influence in society. His power wanes and waxes strong just in pre- portion as He can command that kind of love which is faithful in all things; which is more concerned that Christ may be glorified than it is that the indi- vidual himself may be praised of men. This quality which St. Paul calls the Love of Christ may be possessed by any one who will per- sistently seek it and, when once acquired, will admit the possessor into the very best society that graces the Courts of Heaven; will endow him with the only riches which are imperishable and will enthuse him with a joy that no man can deprive him of. It is a rare quality because few there be that seek it, and yet one has to glance at any one who has attained it to realize that he has found a treasure from which he would not and cannot be separated. It is apparent to all men who look at the faces of those who have attended material success that they do not know joy, for who would look for joy in the directors of a large corporation or in the fre- quenters of social conventions. Their faces betray the fact that they have not found what they sought; nay, rather that they have lost what as children they once possessed. Joy is not found as a rule in the homes of those who have amassed wealth even though they are sur- 62 CUSHIONED PEWS rounded with every conceivable material comfort, but joy can be found by any pastor in the homes where Christ is much beloved, and it is a joy that no man taketh from them. Many people tell me that they get no joy in their religion when it is apparent that they have missed the source of joy. | If you will question them further you will find that Christ is not a living reality, a real person who can hear their prayers. But surely if the human voice can carry from New York to Chicago by radio, the Son of God has no difficulty in hearing our prayers. And if we are really seeking the Love of Christ we will not confuse prayer with teasing God for something. Permit me to suggest that at least three times a day you will use some such prayer as this: O Christ! I believe in Thee because Thou art so true! O Christ! I hope in Thee because Thou art so good! | | O Christ! I love Thee, because Thou art so kind! O Christ! Iam sorry that I have been unworthy of Thy love for me! Inject into your religion, that which Christ brought into the world—the possibility of personal converse between God and man. Make Christ’s presence in your life such a reality that when you are thinking a wrong thought or THE JOYOUSNESS OF LIVING 63 harboring a mean sentiment, you are at once con- scious that He sees you. Make His presence so real that when you fall into sin and do that which grieves Him, you are as con- scious of our Lord’s pained look as was St. Peter beside the fire. Practice the presence of Christ at each Eucharist so that His promise to dwell in you may be the most real thing in your life that day. We all must be profoundly conscious of our un- worthiness the moment that the beauty of His holi- ness becomes the greatest reality in our lives. Then we find our joy in serving Him—in feeling that perhaps He may approve. Then we find our help in feeling that He is near to care, to understand, to help. Then we find the world, not a dreary thing end- ing in a cemetery but a wondrously beautiful thing ending in the fellowship of Jesus Christ. No morals, no orthodoxy, no culture, can take the place of our personal sense of the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives. PART II THE SOCIAL GOSPEL '‘ Pe Ave te A teed | eee An Oriental Indictment HANDI is a religious enthusiast who is the (; Savanarola of India. A graduate of Oxford, a lawyer who has amassed a large fortune, he lives most simply and devotes his life to resisting the encroachments of Western Industrialism upon the ancient culture of the Indes. In a lecture delivered recently, I heard the Dean of English Language at Bombay University state that Ghandi was originally very strongly pro-Eng- lish, but that recent events in European diplomacy and post-bellum politics had driven him to a strong opposition to the supremacy of Western culture in India. Ghandi is not a Christian, but is a great admirer of Christ. He believes that the Sermon on the Mount is the best compendium of moral truth and is calcu- lated to bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number; but he also believes that the Gospel of Christ has been made inoperative by the crass obsti- nacy of the Western mind. “Why,” asks Ghandi, “should we seek to become a product of the Western industrial program, when the European thinks of himself chiefly as a body (only incidentally as a soul); whereas the ancient Hindu of high caste thinks of himself as a soul tem- porarily inhabiting a body.” After all, isn’t this indictment of Anglo-Saxon civilization by this learned Hindu one which makes uS wince just because it is true? 67 68 CUSHIONED PEWS When one thinks of leaders in England and Amer- ica one does not think of them at all as men who have accommodated their lives to God’s will; but, quite the contrary, as men who are trying to accom- modate God’s will to their own plans. These plans seem big to those who execute them, —so big that their material bulk dwarfs a human soul. In this they differ from their Master, for He never had a plan so big that it shut Him off from the ap- peal of the least of these, His brethren. -Any man, the magnitude of whose business has made him indifferent to the cry of human need, may be a big brute; He is not a big man. He may be a well-groomed and well-fed brute, but he is the kind of whom Ghandi truthfully says is chiefly body and incidentally a soul. There has probably never been a more brutal sys- tem than that of Western industrialism in its effect on all of those involved. When a man leaves out of his daily life those touches of recollection by which he shows himself to be a child of God, he certainly lacks something which would take him out of the brute class. : Unless one keeps up his morning and evening de- votions; his grace at meals; his hour of meditation in private as well as his hour of worship in public as the regular habit of his weekly life; there is noth- ing in his life to relate him to God. He becomes chiefly a body to be clothed and kept and his soul becomes so incidental as to become a negligible factor in his life. AN ORIENTAL INDICTMENT 69 The fact that pagans are well dressed and well mannered cannot excuse them from the indictment of this cultivated Hindu as he flays our Western in- dustrialism for its lack of spirituality and for its ultra care of material interests. It is certainly a narrow way which one has to pursue in seeking spiritual culture, but no man is excused from the attempt by the difficulty of the quest. On the one side is the cant of the double-faced hypocrite, who talks piously and acts maliciously. On the other side is the mechanical goose-step of a perfunctory ecclesiastical regimentation. In neither of these perversions of Christian culture do we find those qualities of earnest reverence, of cour- - teous charity and of courageous self-discipline which should characterize the followers of Jesus Christ. That the representative of Western culture so often leaves the exploitation of religion to those who pervert it is no credit to his courage, to his culture or to his character. There is no question but that God expects man to - cultivate the soul, irrespective of those who pretend and those who fail, and it is no alibi for relegating one’s spiritual development to the background, that one is ashamed of his fellow-men. There is a demand today for men who put the soul and its possibilities before the body and its easier victories, and except it be possible to secure such men then the time will come that America will be like Sodom and Gomorrha. 70 CUSHIONED PEWS The man who neglects God and refuses to. culti- vate his spiritual nature is confessing to the world that he is chiefly a body and only incidentally a soul. And such men can never aid in the solution of the moral and spiritual problems that face our civiliza- tion. ‘A Social Gospel HE WORD “social” and ‘the word “society”’ have the same parentage; they are both de- rived from the Latin word socius, which means a companion. Yet the two words are just like two branches of the same family —the one branch seeking virtue and the other branch seeking prosperity. They are like the two ladies who were said to have lived upon the same square, but not in the same circle with one another. Christ preached a social gospel and by this is meant that He came to found a household of faith in which rich and poor meet together and acknowl- edge one Father; in which there is no respect of persons but master and servant meet at a common table and profess a common brotherhood; in which the learned are not arrogant and the ignorant are not bitter; in which the opulent are not vain and the poor are not envious; in which the cultivated are extremely courteous to the masses and the common- folk are gladly respectful to those in authority. No one can read the Gospel of Christ, or the words of St. Paul, or the history of the early Church with- out realizing that the strength of the Gospel was the sincerity of the fellowship between all sorts of folks; just as it was in the trenches during the war. But the “Social Gospel” has a brother which re- sembles him in many ways, but yet is most unlike him in other respects. (ae 72 CUSHIONED PEWS So much do the two look alike that many people cannot tell them apart and yet they are very dif- ferent at heart. This brother we may call the ‘Society Gospel.” He too starts in the fellowship of Christ and seem- ingly carries out the will of the Master with equal earnestness, but he is really a rather unholy fellow. He accepts the fellowship of the Gospel with cer- tain reservations. Instead of saying, “Father, what wilt Thou have me to do?” and then setting out to do it at any cost; the Society Gospel hedges and says, “Father, what wilt Thou do for me?” Instead of saying, ‘““What can I do for the least of these my brethren in order that they who have never had much, may have something that I can give them?” the Society Gospel says, ““What can I do for those who are beneath me without identifying my- self too closely with them?” Instead of saying “What can I give up in a worldly way that I may be an influence for good in spiritual things?” the Society Gospel says, “How can I do some spiritual work without affecting my social standing?” I have watched the game for many years both from the standpoint of the poor missionary and from the seats of the mighty, and I have come to the con- clusion that it is much easier to convert people to an option on the Kingdom of Heaven than it is to get them to invest in the fellowship of the humble. Not that this high mightiness manifests itself in the crude and rather stupid way that one sees depicted A SOCIAL GOSPEL | 73 in the movies, but in a far more subtle and genteel way so that it can deceive even the very elect. One doesn’t find Christians with that haughty arrogance which is so offensive to God and man; but rather with a cultivated aloofness which charms you with its gracious manner, while it freezes you with its distant frigidity. It is Christian in that it is willing to give light, but pagan in its inability to provide heat. Its love is platonic and is far more interested in some theory of universal brotherhood than it is in the practice of a more localized humanity. It believes thoroughly in a community chest as the least bothersome way of feeding Lazarus. It is not indifferent to Lazarus’ sores but rather calloused as to his blood relationship. When the Christian religion began, it sprang from the soil; not from palaces or academies. Its first protagonists were peasants; its early adherents were mostly poor people. There were not many rich, not many powerful in those early days. Until Constantine gave it imperial sanction, it was singularly free from social climbers. Then the constituency rapidly changed and the Church be- came the home of academic learning and _ social culture. The humble drifted into sects where they ceased to be meek; or the meek endured a situation in which they were forced to be humble. Certainly one does not wish to exclude learning ' and culture from the courts of the Lord’s House, but one can pay too big a price for these embellish- 74 | CUSHIONED PEWS ments, for there are more basic virtues which they must not replace but adorn. There is nothing more delightful than men who are learned gentlemen and also humble Christians, but the Church has suffered from those who have felt that it was enough to be the one without con- cerning themselves much as to whether they were attempting to be the other. One can never quite get away from those verses in the song of the Blessed Virgin, when she exult- ingly sings of the time when God shall exalt the humble and the meek and send the haughty empty away. The words have to me a very real meaning and |! rather fancy that Europe would be a joyous place today, if prelates and princes had spent more time cn the significance of these words and less on the pomps and vanities of their respective official positions. Arrogance in Christians of high estate has made envy, malice and all uncharitableness among the rank and file. | But we are not so much concerned with the pomp of popes as we are with the dispositions of bishops, priests and deacons; and less with the pride of kings than with the self-conceit of wardens and vestrymen. They just don’t seem to learn how to become the friend of publicans and sinners as the Master was and would have us be; nor do they seem to take in the tremendous spiritual importance of the prayers of the poor. I know that it is as difficult a task for the cul- A SOCIAL GOSPEL 75 tured and prosperous to be humanly considerate of the uncouth and improvident, as it is for the uncouth to learn manners and the improvident to learn thrift. It is well for us to recollect that this is a world in which a shepherd boy became the great King of Israel, and a ploughboy the great poet of Scotland, and a rail-splitter the great President of our Repub- lic, and a carpenter the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It would seem, not only un-Christian but also un- intelligent, not to appreciate the latent value of the common people, and to realize that the world owes more to cots and cabins than it does to mansions and - palaces. “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” is a truer exposi- tion of the dignity of human life than is the “Soul of a Bishop” from one who never was a Bishop and has somewhat of an indefinite soul. It is this one touch that is lacking both in our ministry and in our laity—we have permitted ourselves to be arti- ficially removed from the tang of the moor which produces the delicate odor of violets and hether and are too prone to revel in the rather sickening odor of hot-house neurotics. The Church of England lacked this saving gra- ciousness toward the lowly when it forced the Wes- leyans out of its Communion and caused them to lose the one thing which the members of the Mother Church lacked, viz.— humility and meekness. For humility is not identical with poverty nor is meekness lacking among the prosperous. In fact, a cross section of human society would 76 CUSHIONED PEWS show that humility and meekness are not necessarily related to worldly prosperity or the lack of it. ~The pity of it is that the Church has never seemed to appreciate these qualities in her own constituency. — Possibly it is the hardest lesson which Churchmen have to learn that the Church of the Nazarene does not fulfill its function by providing its members with a pleasant atmosphere of learning and culture. Learning and culture are rather a by-product of Christian influence than its basic output. An arro- gant bishop, a smug rector, a worldly vestryman are offensive to the ethics of Cnhrist’s Gospel, however acceptable they may be to a little coterie of con- stituents who applaud them. The test is not one, however, of external manners but of an internal attitude, a basic disposition. Per- haps the test which a Christian man ought constant- ly to apply to himself are these: Do I really worship God or do I try to refashion Him to suit my temporal condition? Is my attitude toward the least of these my es) ren that of the Christ or of the Pharisees? Am I more impressed with my own sense of recti- tude or my consciousness that I am an unprofitable servant? Do I consciously act differently toward those whom I regard as my equals and those whom I regard as social outcasts? Am I satisfied to move in a little clique of attractive people or do I really want to know and help those who are unattractive? In other words, am I a follower of Dives or of A SOCIAL GOSPEL fils Christ? Is my concern more that of purple and fine linen, of sumptuous fare and congenial friends than of the sores of Lazarus, his loneliness and his un- attractiveness? As Vice-President Marshall has very happily put it in analyzing our modern charity: “I am not op- posed to scientific charity, but I do not favor the introduction of science to the exclusion of the per- sonal and heart approach.” And so I might say that I am not opposed to a highly educated and cultivated Christian conscious- ness unless it fails to carry the human touch of Jesus Christ into the personal contact of Christians with publicans and sinners. Any other kind of Christian fellowship is Christianity with Christ left out. Of course the reason why so few of us are of the kind whom the common people gladly hear is just because it is the hardest job that confronts us. It is not easy deliberately to forsake that which is congenial in order that we may do that which Christ expects of us,for, after all, the Christian life is a difficult task for, as we have said before, it consists essentially in doing that which we do not ~ want to do and it is loving the person whom we do not like. Orientation HE word is derived from the fact that the Sun lies in the East and we look toward the rising Sun as the beginning of the day. The Sun- worshipper faced the rising sun as his first act of worship. Sunday is a word of pagan origin and testifies to this ancient devotion to the Sun. In life we may be said to orientate ourselves, when we de- termine the prime factor to which we credit the crigin of our life. To what do we look for inspira- tion? So Christ is the Sun of Righteousness to the Chris- tian and we strive to orientate our life to Christ, as we “with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord.” Religion is primarily concerned with this matter of orientation and a good deal of man’s ultimate character is determined by the orientation of his life as the dawn of his day is breaking. To me, it is a very curious trait of modern thousne that it gets so easily irritated over the phenomenon of religion. Irritation is always a sign of mental un- balance. The man who refuses to deal with facts as facts is on the way to the madhouse and religious: phenomena are as much fact in human life as is bac- teria or logic. “We believe in God” is such a universal character- istic of man that if you care to take it out of man’s 78 ORIENTATION 79 experience, you would have to re-write human his- tory. And yet, scientific writers have coined a phrase, “nature,” which science does not define and talks glibly and unscientifically about nature’s doing this or that. What is nature?